Mike,
Delays also can come from project management success or failure.
"Failure" in that the newcomers did not realize the full size of the job and ended up in a morass of incomplete spaghetti and branching solutions to the wrong problems. Or "Success" in that they knew their first task was to define the precise scope, resulting in a defining exercise that grew and grew until it took much of the 14 months. Since they shunned the old-timers, it sounds as if the former was more likely.
Either way, hopefully these gurus learned that an "experienced" practitioner does not proclaim what something will cost or how long it will take until they know what it is. ;-) I don't think this is necessarily a story about NET unless you believe that this sort of over-confidence is more common in that camp.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
