[cowsandmilk]

> 3. It's not always clear if you're entering into a long-term relationship with the client.

I've also found that clients will often be acquired, go through management changes, etc that make having these things built in become unstable. One of my clients was acquired by Merck, then Merck sent a letter saying they were terminating all contracts. 18 months later, I get a frantic e-mail from some low-level people asking why I was no longer updating things for them.

The median life of many companies makes building in release->release upgrade support difficult in practice.