[johnnyanmac]

I imagine that is exactly what:

>spend more money on business analysis up front.

Entails. But sure, if the government doesn't want to pay for that quality, they can spend just as much or more resurrecting Cobol devs in cryo-stasis in 2099

[jrockway]

I don't think they have to keep COBOL devs in cryostasis. Some sufficiently motivated individual could likely learn it today. There are even programmers alive right now that would see a large legacy system and not immediately suggest a rewrite on their first day. It's rare but it can happen!