I've certainly seen this behaviour, years wasted on things that could never work in the long run, then rinse and repeat.

I've only been on for one cycle, but the pattern is quite clear, even if it might not be completely intentional, the result is the same.

It begins with something like a sunk cost fallacy, and then it just rolls on.

There is a group of people where architecture is a synonym for "too much architecture". But if you know it or not, you are always doing architecture as soon as start doing anything non-trival. Only difference is that if you aren't doing in explicitly, then you are doing it implicitly and subconsciously, and if you are doing something trivial, usually someone else has already done the architecture work for you and embedded it in the tools you use.

Not that I need to tell you this, just venting a bit :)