Good punchline. Lately it seems that producing software with interesting 'features' is almost mandatory. But then again, it might be a grey area since the patches are often free...wait...I smell a management opportunity to increase profit..
I just figured out that this company is Oracle. I always had my suspicions, but now I know for sure!
All who are sacrificed to the great Oracle god must first bow and pledge allegiance, and vow to never get any productive work done, to be continually frustrated, and perfect the fine art of laptop-tossing through the window.
Surely, the Engineer has to be some sort of optimist, otherwise they would never bother designing/building anything. The optimist tends to underestimate resources needed for a project, but with experience their estimates improve: probably as their optimism diminishes.
The pessimist is rarely disappointed, as they say.