As someone who has (a) written COBOL for a living, and (b) suffered through the same injustices that have been described ...

I personally believe that it does not really matter much what “the standard” is, so long as there is “a standard.”   In other words, the ultimate goal is to be able to leverage our visual cortex.   This is the part of our brain that is designed to recognize the Tiger in the underbrush.   It is extraordinarily tuned to differences.   It is also subliminal, in the sense that you do not necessarily have time to generate “conscious thought” to keep you out of the jaws of that tiger.   Hence, you might sense something even if you can’t put your finger on it ... and that is very important.

Indentation, CaMeL Case vs. what-have-you ... I truly think that it does not matter what “the baseline” is, so long as it is applied consistently enough that “differences” stand out.   Sometimes, we feel that something is not-quite right, but we can’t quite put our finger on it . . .

We want to be able to exploit that innate ability of our brains.   And we are able to do that, through the use of tools that create visual-consistency.