Sounds like a case of the bad ol' "I'm the boss here!"-style 'administrating', eg. some grizzled unix wizard knows only HIS way of doing things, that's automatically the way things SHOULD be done, these young whippersnappers'n their fancy GUI-driven installers, get off my lawn etc.

All they have to show for themselves is a flawlessly running system, which, to Those That Make The Decisions, is all that counts.