Yeah but the issue would be things would be far more noticeable from a copy and paste point of view. David Braben probably hasn't coded, developed or worked on game code or assets for over a decade or more best guess.
He's said so himself. He said something like the last code written by him in the company was a long time ago. That's what you should do when you go into management, focus on the job you are doing.
Unlike Chris Roberts for example, who apparently still adds code to Star Citizen (alledgedly rewriting the physics engine a couple of years ago), with the probable result that he spent a lot of time coding when he should have been doing the job he is meant to be doing as well as requiring the real devs to go in after and fix everything he had messed up.