> Ie., if some company pays you to build a piece of software and you hand it over when you're done, you were not engaged in research/experimental expenditures if you paid people to build said software.

Then it's your customer's R&D, and they have to amortize their payment to you. If you're doing outsourced software development for SMBs and startups, you might not be directly taxed under this rule, but your customers are, which significantly affects the market for your services.