I'm shocked that some middle manager with half a technical head on their shoulders didn't use this as a VP play before this; surely, "I saved the company 120m a year with no downstream consequences to yada yada" would have been worth it for someone somewhere to climb the ladder.

Why would you, if in good times you can enlarge your own budget/headcount/importance/... just by increasing budget no questions asked, that's a safer way ahead. You risk devaluing your own position in the company for an uncertain gain...

I was obviously being slightly sarcastic. I wouldn't want to personally work that way. I do believe that might be quite an effective strategy if one's goal were climbint the corporate ladder.