Hello again jmdugan10, I can see where you are coming from, at the same time you will likely have a hard time making any changes as a result of what you will likely hear about using "too much" amperage. Some of the obvious problems associated with this could be excessive penetration or burn through and depending on type of material and a myriad of other things this may or may not be an issue. Where it could be an issue: if they are applying patches and are burning through there is the possibility depending upon application or use that they could introduce eddy related erosion of the pipe from that point, there is also a possibility in an instance such as this, that suck-back could be introduced causing a reduction in thickness, in certain situations this could possibly lead to failures. If the material requires backing for protection from atmospheric contamination, as is the case with many exotic metals or stainlesses, this could be another issue where excessive heat input could cause some serious issues. There are likely numerous examples of these types of problems that many others could elaborate upon better than me.
The rods themselves: too much amperage and the fluxes can be damaged and cause problems with proper weld bead shielding and deposition, excessive spatter, irregular bead contour, and undercutting along the edges of the bead can also be encountered. This one is not very likely unless the welder is really abusing the amperage setting for a particular diameter.
As far as the structural aspects go, excessive amperage can certainly lead to undercut issues that could weaken and cause cracking problems leading to joint failures. Somewhat along this line the slim possibilty might come up in certain instances where stress risers could develope due to some of the erratic weld deposition that might happen as a result of excessive amperage. I'm stretching it out there pretty far with some of these items and they could certainly be challenged in many instances. Hope maybe this is the sort of thing that will be of help to you. As you said in your post, this could be a very long uphill battle if you are trying to make changes in the environment that you have described. Best regards, aevald