It's more the fact that it wasn't put out to tender and won by a big outsourcing company like Capita. They would have tried to implement it all using SharePoint

It's more the fact that it wasn't put out to tender and won by a big outsourcing company like Capita. They would have tried to implement it all using SharePoint, gone massively overbudget and bailed leaving a slow mess that everyone avoids. Instead, lots of small projects written by a young team using sensible technologies and sticking to an excellent set of user interface guides.