I've seen this in a 50-person volunteer group. The devs turned up every year with a proposal to throw away and completely rewrite what they'd done the previous

I've seen this in a 50-person volunteer group. The devs turned up every year with a proposal to throw away and completely rewrite what they'd done the previous year. No incremental upgrades -- a complete rewrite every time. This worked great when several other business systems relied on their vanity toy, and invariably the API would change with every release. There's a balance to be struck between 'never change anything because it's always worked' and 'new shiny every week'. In my experience it's an absolute nightmare getting people to agree where the line is, and on top of that, get management to buy-in and push-back when either side oversteps.