Tucumseh,
I sympathise with your frustration working within the organisation, but (much-maligned) suppliers equally feel it too. We go through months of contract negotiations where the customer emphasis is to slash the price (to the detriment of functionality), only for the DLO to suddenly discover a substantial underspend later on.
Rather than divert funds to causes that will immediately benefit the frontline, the (non-aircraft) IPT approaches us for ideas that are, in essence, money wasters that will add one or two new features to an equipment scheduled for replacement. However, the mindset is that it is better to proceed in this manner rather than admit poor fiscal forecasting and subsequently lose funding in the next FY.
I know that it is a common sport for PPruNers to bash industry, but they should understand that the ex-servicemen amongst us get equally annoyed with an organisation that is one day dangerously frugal and the next has money to burn on trivia.
Back to my Laphroaig….