Herc708,
This hardly merits an answer, I think DozyWannabe got it right.
Your rant has absolutely nothing to do with real-time safety-critical embedded systems development. To start with, such software is never specified with "Bells and Whistles", and there is no way it can be delivered performing something different than what it was originally designed, specified and contracted to do.
What is originally specified is what it must do, the engine will not work if it does any less (barring requirements and specification errors, which do occur). And the fact that engines usually do work, incredibly reliably compared to previous generations, speaks for itself.
'nuff said.
Bernd