@calamari This is well expressed and has much wider applicability than this case.

I know next to nothing about this sort of software - but this lesson is applicable to almost everything in modern heavily regulated life. Compliance is the enemy of function and of resilience. *In general.*

This could be attributed to poorly designed rules. But this misses the point. Rules are a substitute for thought and understanding, and there is no substitute.

Lists of issues to check are useful mnemonics, but actively harmful when the person checking doesn't actually understand the system. They are really only useful when made and used by the same person.

Try asking someone in the building trade why certain features of houses are built a certain way. You'll often hear "because it's a legal requirement", or you'll hear something made up on the spot which is incorrect or incoherent and sometimes physically impossible. The real reasons are often long lost and possibly no longer applicable.

The same issue was evident with covid, as soon as people stopped thinking about how the virus is transmitted, and talked instead about what they were and weren't allowed to do, we had lost.