You can’t eat decades-old food with no consequences

Except when you can. There have been cases where they have found canned foods from decades ago and when they lab-tested and taste-tested them they were still safe to eat (albeit a bit bland). The biggest danger with intact cans that are not inflated it that you might get lead poisoning if the can is older than ~1990

That’s the whole point, you have to use your senses (common and biological). You can’t assume that something is unsafe to eat just because it’s beyond its best before date or has been stored at 5° instead of 4° for a few hours. At the same time you can’t blindly trust that every food is fine just because it has been stored correctly.

Use your senses! I know doing that is not very famous these days, but you should try it sometimes.

So instead of “If in doubt throw it out” I’d suggest “If in doubt, throw it out, but if its still tasty, throw it in the pasty”.