I think this snippet from the MongoDB article sums it up nicely:
This was ultimately a communication problem rather than a technical problem. If these conversations had happened sooner, if we had taken the time to really understand how the client saw the data and what they wanted to do with it, we probably would have done the conversion earlier, when there was less data, and it was easier.
I'll be good and spare everyone the inevitable "Cool Hand Luke" reference...
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Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.