As for "buy off", go back up a few entries in this this thread, generally the UI is what is in the forefront of the the person signing off the development expenditure, not the normalisation of the data, nor the impact on the database or application servers, unless an over budget upgrade is required, nor the impact on other silo's data, nor the impact on the technical team.

No ifs, no buts, no maybes, someone who is sufficiently into the marketing view that they have got to the point where they are signing off the expenses of major corporate development is not going to care what any techie says about long term, cross application data viability. Their job, probably 99% of the time, just will not sustain it, so it's up to the grunts to carry on and do the job correctly and hope that the UI is not so far from the currently available technology that a few months of unpaid overtime won't be able to fix the issues.

Otherwise the marketers are going to be looking for roast geek at the next corporate didntwedogreat fest and the geeks will have to wait a little longer before inheriting the Earth.