Very good questions that I can't answer. And it's not my 'bullshit rationalization' -- I'm not the one who decided to build all these products on this "crapware" stack. I'm just suggesting that this stack was chosen for some (hopefully) logical reason.

If speed of development isn't the reason, then what is the attraction? I'm serious and curious. I looked through your profile and you clearly know your shit. Are we just in a period of a bad stack being popular and used despite there being other, better options?