1) It took a weekend to complete. The friction was building for far longer. There's a cost to that, esp if it effects customer satisfaction and retention. They didn't refactor for fun, did they :) How many dev teams aren't so lucky? Is this article a no choice outlier, or a best practice?

2) My comment wasn't directed at the article but on another comment that blamed the developers. These problems should be owned by ownership / leadership / management more and engineers less.

3) That said, hire a DBA? I don't think that's necessary.