Actually, the developer that designed the system was laid off over two years ago, and the database has since been maintained by one of the other managers at the location. Everyone at the company has stated how he was a hard worker, but didn't know the first thing about database design, and while he worked as best as he could with the knowledge he had, he still left them with a rather terrible setup.
I don't really blame him, it's as if I asked a chef to design me a rocket ship, it was simply something he didn't know, and instead relied on information gathered through quick google searches and tinkering.