I just made a github action that merges anything updated in master into feature branches automatically. you get pinged if there's a conflict but the automerge keeps drift to a minimum so it's less common and fixed sooner.

better than merging poorly tested/reviewed code.

and yeah, a small team of superstars doesn't need reviews so much, but most teams have a range of devs with different levels of experience and time working with particular parts of a large codebase. Someone more senior or more expert derisks people picking up tickets and improves code quality.

it also leads to plenty of good conversations about the best way to implement, so overall it's a win.