Every steaming pile said less about the development effort and so much more about the project management. This same boneheaded top-down approach is why AI isn't working for anyone without being willing to pour as much effort into babysitting as just writing the damn code yourself.

Old adages continue to ring true and as loud as ever. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

They were, at least for that era. Just maybe not at AI-scale.