A better analogy would be Alice doing a bunch of research up-front to think that she needs all kinds of cool features before opening and then hires the plumber

A better analogy would be Alice doing a bunch of research up-front to think that she needs all kinds of cool features before opening and then hires the plumber to enable them, rather than just hiring him because he knows how to build complex systems. The latter really isn't too realistic while the former happens every day in many, many companies. This overbuilding is usually borne from a lack of understanding of what is really needed and in lieu of learning through doing and reacting, people try to build up-front in anticipation, putting a lot of importance on things that ultimately turn out to be completely trivial.