[mindcrime]

Straight-up incompetence on the part of the systems integrator or designer

Can confirm.

My first ever programming job, 20+ years ago, was doing CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) and call-center integration stuff... basically, building IVR's and integrating them with backend databases and customer support apps. Truth is, there's rarely - if ever - any real technical reason to not have the agent shown the customer's information as soon as they pick up the call. This stuff was all being done decades ago.

As far as I'm concerned, it's either "straight up incompetence" or "straight up laziness" or some variation on that theme.

[gjvc]

IBM AS/400 CallPath system demonstrated here https://youtu.be/5pY6Xxptp9A?t=2083 almost brought a tear to at least one viewer's eye

[mindcrime]

Oh yeah. CallPath and DirectTalk. And AS/400's. That's pretty much where my career began. I'm just glad I dodged the bullet of getting heavily involved in RPG programming...