I should mention that the reason this was such a huge problem was that our dependency system at the time gave each group the option of using the "latest" versio

I should mention that the reason this was such a huge problem was that our dependency system at the time gave each group the option of using the "latest" version of the platform library instead of fixed version. Everyone used it. If, instead, people had locked to a known version of the library it would've been so much easier to upgrade.