tucumseh; I've also read your Post on the Nim Thread and I can't disagree with much that you say. Something you haven't given much coverage to, though, is Government accounting regulations. They have the stranglehold on everything we do. This is not an MoD invention as it applies to all Departments/Ministries and is presided over by the Treasury. Think about why PFI always looks so attractive; or at least on face value. The beanies involved in a Project (that title itself drives much of the mindset) do not have an easy time of it and poke their beaks in and stamp their feet because the resident spanner stranglers often demonstrate a childlike grasp of commercial and financial considerations.
You are also right that people don't always talk to the right people and, even worse, often talk to the wrong people. This usually shows up when in-service support is eventually considered. Either the IPT doesn't have a loggie attached to it or has ones that have a very narrow experience. It is interesting, incidentally, that the means of providing that wider experience has been dismantled over the last 20 years. Couple this with the involvement of Service team members who stay for around 2 years then push off either outside or to another posting and you get additional "disconnects" (12 months to grasp what is needed and how it all works, 6 months being productive and 6 months winding down to whatever's next). I could provide a number of examples but none are in the aviation field.
It seems a paradox that the, arguably, obsessive concern with safeguarding Public money and principles of propriety is probably the greatest waster and fragmenter of available funds.