A lot of people said it was a bad idea, and it turned out to be a very bad idea.
I know people who worked on the project, it had a mulitude of problems.
The only good thing about it was that it covered our arses, as we were working on the Seahawk upgrade, which was late and overbudget, but nowhere near as bad as the sprite. I'd hate to think how much bad press we would have had without the Seasprite covering us.
Part of the delays on the Seahawk were caused by the Seasprite, they were supposed to sort out most of the software problems (same kit as was going on the Seahawk), but ended up so far behind that we overtook them.