[ownagefool]

I think core teams being helpful or harmful really comes down to the individuals.

The problem is at this level, most orgs don't have anyone to really judge or contest competency, so they hire the salesmen rather than the doers and when they don't, they tend to cheap out and just get inexperienced people.

Logically it makes a bunch of sense, though.

Why rebuild yet another platform? Why is your central platform bad? Usually it's not self-service, sometimes it's because it's built in cumbersome ways, other times its because it actually enforces good standards on you rather than just giving app your apps admin.

It's difficult for the person who hires the core team to differentiate between those complaints, unless they themselves both have the technical competency and the empathy to really understand the problem. They usually don't.

Point being, done well, it's great, but most folks can't do it well.