>>Oversimplification.
>>With larger companies you HAVE to use exchangable maintainance workers and run into the worst situation: you have to combine Peter Principle with Murphy. Also the focus often shifts from things software HAS to accomplish to things that can be built within a budget or even worse, what the budget using a mix of company employed people and freelancers would buy.
>>I had to adjust my patterns of work a bit this century. In the early days working for large companies was nearly the same as for small companies, at least in so far as often the department acted like a small business, paying for SW out of own budget and balancing price and specs directly.
>>And we both know there are more such factors ;-)

A cynic might observe that there's little software written today that is worth the cost. Most of it simply re-packages existing functionality in a new flavor du jour. It's not just me saying this: ask Quicken what small business is saying about their expectations for "new" software. The days when business would eagerly hoover up the latest flavor du jour are gone and business now looks at software expense the same way it decides whether to replace its flatbed truck. You only have to look at the reception Windows 95 received vs the reception Winphone and Windows 8 received to see that this is true even for a $100 OS purchase let alone development costing tens of thousands of dollars.