I think you're judging the hypothetical amateur programmer too harshly. So what if the code is ugly? Did the guy actually save time? Does his script make more errors than he would make if doing everything by hand? Is the 30-page function really necessary to achieve noticeable gains or could he still get a lot from sticking to short code snippets and thus avoiding the ugliness?

Similarly with the second example. Maybe some steps of the workflow will still have to be done manually. This wouldn't fly in a professionally programmed system. But if someone is already being paid to do everything manually then as long as they can automate some steps, it's still a win.