In this particular case it was "politics" in the smallest sense of the word. The head of the storage team did not get along with the head of the infra team, so the infra guys would solve the problems they could solve, ignoring any storage subsystem problems because that was a "dead end".

This is exactly like the boy looking for the coin under the light. It feels like it could be productive, versus definitely not being productive. It doesn't matter that logically it won't work, it's the feeling that matters.

They are invested in going down the wrong path. They are invested in not being wrong.

Sometimes it isn't a matter of people getting along. People don't want to see their pet project take the blame for a failure or completely replaced/defunded, Instead of rationally looking at root causes with facts, people may make emotional responses that are dressed up as logical suggestions (e.g. throw more memory and cores at the problem).