Code was always expensive. Entire industries of design tools cropped up simply to avoid writing the wrong code since it is so expensive. There are entire journals dedicated to this. Organizations are fixated on making sure that the right code is written since the cost of getting that wrong is so great.
Building the wrong thing is what is expensive.
Once you know what you are building and can clearly describe it, the code isn't the hard part. Or at least that's how it has always seemed to me.
I assume GP meant exactly this (the people designing and writing good code are expensive).