Also well said Old Hand.

One of the conundrums I often observe in the hobbyist intellectual is that even after the first sign of dark clouds on the horizon they don't seem inclined to join the dots! I think in many cases the ego that created the success (often by force of effort) is not receptive to a retrospective analysis.

I guess in many cases where success in the venture occurs, that a cohort of underlings has to be engaged to scale up the solution - and it is these unfortunates who have to wrestle with the monster that has been created. In many cases this backfill cohort is younger (cheaper), impressionable, dis empowered and not at all necessarily talented - all of which leads to a perpetuation of the original "dodgy" practices under the "ain't broke" mantra.

In a personal experience where I have sneaked a peek under the hood of a second time success story (the first having been very successful as well) I was dismayed to see an appalling database implementation - ably masked by a glamorous user interface - but in reality simply a brute force effort built on foundations of pure sand.