Hmm, interesting theory...I think its more that forks are a thing - with a traditional product if snr mgmt dictates xyz must happen, rare is it even the consumer gets much say - with FOSS if it doesn't work right or does something dumb you can normally fork and go a completely different direction.

So I guess yeah if there are 100 ways to skin a cat you will get 100 different approaches, but then that's where the market comes along and mostly only the best 'rise to the top'.

Also, don't pretend complete re-writes with dubious value don't happen in big biz...its more common for something to be pronounced 'unworkable' and a complete rewrite mandate be issued, usually because a product had ossified to the point nobody knows what it actually does anymore, normally because companies are bad about investing maintenance time into code.