You do, however, see them tell the engineers they can't have product X they requested, because product Y is the same thing but about a half million bucks cheape

You do, however, see them tell the engineers they can't have product X they requested, because product Y is the same thing but about a half million bucks cheaper. Then the engineers have to add a year of extra development to make product Y actually work, costing about half a million in development salaries and who knows how much opportunity cost from delaying the project by a year. Then again, I shouldn't complain. People like that mean there's always lots of work available for people like me.