Running with that example for funsies. Turns out that slamming two screwdrivers into the outlet allowed you to tap the power source 6 inches away from the wall. Normally, this is a bad idea, but the alternative was tearing down the wall to extend the outlet, and the cost of that was too high at the time. The other cheap solution was a power strip, but there was no petty cash and no nearby store. Then several people tied power wires around the new screw driver power extenders (which was going to be a temp solution anyway until you could buy a power strip). Now, these critical power wires can't be disconnected because the attached servers can't go down.
Sometimes things organically grow in bad ways as cost optimizations that maybe (or maybe not) made sense back in the day. If you were to design it again, you obviously would not stick the screw drivers in the wall socket. But that was then, this is now. Instead of complaining about screw drivers, let's get a plan in place to get the mission critical services to be able to switch power sources.
Sometimes things organically grow in bad ways as cost optimizations that maybe (or maybe not) made sense back in the day. If you were to design it again, you obviously would not stick the screw drivers in the wall socket. But that was then, this is now. Instead of complaining about screw drivers, let's get a plan in place to get the mission critical services to be able to switch power sources.