Aaron,

While I feel your sentiments and heart is in the right place I will tell you rather frankly a P.E. license does not demonstrate competence as a matter of fact it means only that the person who has obtained it managed to pass an FE and a P.E. exam neither of which have any direct questions concerning piping analysis or the piping codes.

Your statement " feel the impotus has to come from ASME, for instance ASME B31.3 should make it mandatory for all comprehensive stress calculations to be checked and approved by a Professional Engineer, this would go a long way to ensuring good QA." ..... is answered by the qualifications of a designer listed right in the beginning of B31.3.

However cheap is best and thats all there is to matters.

I will also state that thousands died here in the U.S.A. before the adoption of a boiler code. My guess is until some disaster occurs due to poor work nothing will happen. And I would also speculate that said disaster is unlikely.