All of these last statements are true, but the author specifically said it was too late for any of those things, and sometimes you just find yourself saying 'Next time I won't....' but until then, you just have to deal with it.

I'm also sure he did not then say 'Hey, now I have this cool program/script generator, who needs contracts and project specs anymore'

If you don't need it, don't use it. Unfortunately, in the real world, this kind of thing happens more frequently than we would like.