Any site that has a pre-planned launch and reasonable expectation of traffic should load test to a factor somewhere above their expectations (2x, 4x whatever).

Any site that has a pre-planned launch and reasonable expectation of traffic should load test to a factor somewhere above their expectations (2x, 4x whatever). However, it doesn't mean that you will catch all scenarios that may take down a service etc. Or even the SWAG was anywhere near right, maybe they tested to 2x their expectations but received 10x and didn't have enough capacity to support it. Also in some cases I have seen enterprises not tell the technology people until a week or so before the date. They have a marketing team update the website but never bother to tell the infrastructure people and sometimes it is too late by the time they find out to do anything. Or the tech team is told or finds out and then is told not to spend hours on testing the site or fixing any issues, which I have seen too.