Contrived does not mean unrealistic. I have seen many extreme requirements come down on short notice. Over time, the peter priciple guarantees that there will be a middle manager that miscommunicates an agenda they dont fully understand, then push an emergency change down the hierarchy.

You missed the point of the example. The parent said any design that has to change with a single requirement shift is a bad design. So I gave a requirement that virtually any design would have to change to accommodate. It doesn't preclude the existence of other, more plausible requirements that shift designs. I even provided a real example of one, which you've ignored.