Nice blog post. At a previous job, I saw all of these factors at work on the core product. I had a fight with the CEO where I told him, "You're screaming about cracks in the plaster, I'm telling you it's because the whole foundation's rotten. If we keep plastering over it without fixing the real problem we'll never stop having these stupid issues."

Didn't happen. I couldn't begin to total the amount of time, energy, and money wasted, but I know it went on for two years after that conversation until the company had to do a new financing round and abandon the project.