Experienced people in our industry will be familiar with the following popular anti-pattern:
- The system is built in secret, from unbelievable money.
- Only few are allowed to use it; others can only watch, if at all.
- Its power might be demonstrated once on a low-value target; but right after, a few punx0rs arrive in crappy crafts and frack it up.
- A less dramatic outcome is that the money runs out and the project is simply abandoned.
- After the tragic failure of the original version, "2.0" gets executed basically the same way, with basically the same result.
- The whole thing costs much more than any profit it could ever have achieved.
- It's also hellishly slow – the Millenium Falcon beat it with a day, over just one lightyear distance :)
Now it has a name.
(NOTE: english translation of @kozka's "A Halálcsillag Design Pattern".)