Thanks, @dpl! I would phrase it more some very limited good news amidst some very bad news, which kept me up most of the nights this week.
Absolutely, "they could have done it much better", like you said, @dpl. It is a mess that simply is the way it is (i.e. will not change), as @guiltyparties more or less put it in our chat. There was so much I learned in that chat, it took almost no sleep the entire night to digest, and it is so much I'm considering doing a part 2 of this post to fill everyone in on just how serious these issues really are and the really stupid time wasting things that one must do to get around it.