It's so sad. This approach to development is why so many systems from the 70s are still in use today (you'd be amazed at how many). Sphagetti design, lack of standards, and poor documentation make it nigh impossible to cost-effectively replace them with an efficient, modern system. Oftentimes the only way to do it would be to build a brand new system while the old system continued to run in production. The old system is useless for detailed process analysis, so the end-users must be dedicated to the project to provide the crucial process knowledge. Management is loath to dedicate operational staff at the level of commitment needed because they are needed to run the production system. Risks become too great if staff are not intimately involved in the analysis and design of the new system. So, the decision is rarely made to bite the bullet and replace the dinosaur (and if it is without the proper resources available, they fail and fail and fail, costing millions; incidentally--this is a cash cow for private consulting firms who prey on government contracts for such projects).

This sadly proves that "crap documentation is job security" is true to a degree. Look at all the COBOL programmers still being employed today by governments, and institutions like banks that developed huge, intricate, linked systems 20-30 years ago. And in the case of the government (the largest culprit by far), WE are paying for it. Gah.