In the end, I re-wrote the entire project in regular code and the end result works better and is easier to modify. We don't need to pay expensive consultants anymore. No extra licensing fee. No special software/server/hosting requirements. And any programmer can work on it -- I can even put new hires on it.
The process of developing this solution was funny. We had an absolutely fantastic team doing the requirements and the process was all agile except when it came to the tool itself. At that point, it turned into a waterfall project where everything had to be nailed down before the work was done.
I can mock up a application form very fast so there's really no need for a tool to do that every so slightly faster but in a proprietary and limited way.
wvenable stated that the no code solution was so complicated even the developers could not make sense of it, how does a business user with no development knowledge make sense of it? If the code is in pictograms instead of words I don't think that makes it any easier on the non developer to be honest with you.
I see this being cited a lot but I know from experience the business types like the idea of them being able to do everything themselves, but they won't actually do it.
My business users insist that every part of their site be editable in the CMS which we give them access to, a manual and training explaining how to use it, after 6 years not one of them have ever used the CMS, at most they will login to test I haven't cheated them on the CMS functionality.
They all just phone me and ask me to post a news item or change contact details etc because "I don't understand all that technical stuff" its literally a text box and a save button. I don't see them getting over their fear of technical stuff and getting their hands dirty because its pictures instead of words.
When we converted to regular code, the business users loved it because all the changes that were too complex to do in that product suddenly became both possible and quick. They lost the ability to make small changes themselves but, given that we could do it almost instantly for them, they didn't care. We're all better off because nobody has to know the quirks of this priority system anymore or be limited by it.
A human can hold about 10 objects in working memory, a diagram can help you bump that up to about 20-30 objects, but it gets cluttered. I've been a long time user of mind maps and know they quickly get unwieldy. For more complex information you can use Wiki style web of links but lose the overview mode. Wiki would be more similar to using plain code.