The problem, imo, is not that it took 6 days of reviews to change a major variable. The problem is that the reviews were entirely immaterial to the actual change taking place. Whether variables are hardcoded, have an audit trail, and use proper naming conventions will have no impact on ACTUALLY mitigating the business risk of making a giant change.
Should you be able to extend the backlog of a factory by an entire month just by changing a variable, pushing a build and going for lunch? No.