Pessoal, não sei se esse artigo já passou por aqui (na pesquisa não achei)...mas vai:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000356.html
Em especial:
"The damn customer kept changing his mind. First he wanted Client/Server. Then he read about XML in Delta Airlines Inflight Magazine and decided he had to have XML. Now we're rewriting the thing to use fleets of small Lego Mindstorms Robots."