>>> they might have been too scared to write it. When looking back on the origin of RAID, one of the original developers confessed, “It really wasn’t made to last that long. Sorry!”

This speaks to me - too many times we think we need clever architecture and well thought out methodologies and ... the most useful tools are a mix of inspiration and timing and luck.

Had the developers stopped to plan they would have built something with over 16 bits of primary key - and also made a hundred other "improvements" that would have destroyed all the value MS got out of it.

There is a point in this - it I am not sure I know what it is.