Gerald,
Please forgive me if I am wrong but it appears to me that you are advocating something along these lines - get that car from point A to point B, I don't care how you get it there but as long as the car arrives undamaged I am happy.
"Therefore, the welder does in fact own the weld until they are done. If everyone has done their job right, that usually means the inspection is perfunctory."
If "everyone has done their job right" most of us here on the forum would be out of a job. There would be no need for welding supervisors or welding inspectors.
A final inspection is just that, it may be visual or it may be volumetric but there are a multitude of things that can be done wrong (or not in compliance with the code) during the welding process that will not be picked up by the final inspection.
That is why in process inspections are so critical.
If I walk out my office door now and see a welder welding vertical down when he is only qualified for vertical up I will say stop - cut that weld out.
Who owns the weld now ?
If I walk out my office door now and see a welder welding a s/s butt with 7018 I will say stop - cut that weld out.
Who owns the weld now ?
If I walk out my office door now and see a welder welding straight over slag without cleaning first I will say stop - cut that weld out.
Who owns the weld now ?
The list goes on and on.
ASME IX allows the supervisor to stop the test at any time when he feels the welder does not have the required skill. Who owns that weld ?, definitely not the welder.
The crazy thing about this arguement is that I used the analogy of a welder "owning" the weld in a recent post. I just didn't mean it in this way.
http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/topic_show.pl?pid=143001;hl=ownershipRegards,
Shane