[bluGill]

The problem with that is it is very easy for someone to get a lot of work done in something useless. It is very easy to keep adding more and more features to product X not realizing the the product will never sell enough to make the investment in releasing it worth it: you would be just as useful to the company by taking a nap. Meetings are how you get everybody on the same page on these things. Of course if it is obvious the product won't pay off you send a memo to everyone. However more likely it is a combination of the marketing person doing some productions of sales, engineering projecting how much effort is left, and then someone senior deciding if we need to invest anyway because the loss leader is still worth it for other reasons...

None of this is to say you are wrong though.