And I’m not really saying otherwise, though I would somewhat disagree. I’m just saying that they weren’t necessarily (or even likely) thieving contractors who were just looking out for themselves. They built a respectable, usable, system.
Honestly the contractors I see in IT are usually the far opposite end: it works well enough that they’re happy and pay my bill and by the time it doesn’t work anymore I’ll be off to another gig, so who cares?