I think the real problem is actually the sunk cost fallacy, where often by the time you discover the integration wasn't worth the effort put into it you feel th

I think the real problem is actually the sunk cost fallacy, where often by the time you discover the integration wasn't worth the effort put into it you feel that you should just move on and leave it be. But in practice, something that's a pain to integrate is usually also a pain to maintain that integration. In the end you can't really know if something is going to save time unless you actually try it most of the time. But if you try it and it becomes clear it's going to be a drain it might be time to throw it away and do it better. Of course, there are a few vultures out there that hang on the entire industry because the task they perform is so complex almost any attempt at reinventing their wheel will fail in some non-obvious way. See for example ICU for unicode text processing.