"Another interesting demonstration of the fact that behind a lot of crappy companies are teams of talented individuals."
I agree. I've worked in situations almost exactly like the one described in the reply, and at least one well-known public website redesign that many readers of HN have seen.
When I first saw Dustin's rant a few days ago I just shook my head and said "he's probably never worked in a design agency that serves fortune 500 companies where this sort of stuff happens". The amount of political willpower and organizational strength required to pull off a total redesign in most fortune 500 companies or governmental agencies is tantamount to moving mountains. These are the type of organizations and client/agency relationships where the font size on a single button on a form in a "contact us" page can be debated for weeks, where talented designers sit in boardroom conferences till 2AM listening to teams of hundreds of people all throw in their 2 cents instead of actually working on the design that's being discussed.
The thing (that you allude to) about the design agencies that get these kinds of contracts that's interesting is that they are full of exactly that: talented fantastically creative individuals. And when a team like the one I worked on finishes a massive redesign that gets covered across the web, there's a feeling of utter failure because the final product that makes it out is never even close to what could have been. Corporate politics reduce it to a mere shadow of that. At the same time, a feeling of relief and accomplishment for having just finished the damned thing and navigated the barbed wire mess of insanity that it takes to deliver such a thing.
Next time you see a designer with a multinational bank, airline, consumer products & goods company, automotive company, government agency, etc, in their portfolio, ask about the emotional scars ;).