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It is estimated that roughly 30% of the total maintenance time is spent "understanding the existing product"... This fact relates directly to the turnover number as illustrated by an Air Force study in 1983 where researchers found that the "biggest problem of software maintenance" was "high [staff] turnover" (at 8.7 on a scale of 1 to 10), "understanding and lack of documentation" (7.5), and "determining the place to make a change" (6.9). I contend they are all related. If you have no usable documentation then all of the information is in people's heads. If the heads walk out the door (turnover) then the information needs to be rediscovered. That is not cheap.

It's a good instance of the old "if we know what we're doing is stupid and expensive, why do we keep doing it?" No one seems to have provided a workable solution to that old problem, probably because the right people either aren't listening, don't care, or are just too aloof to notice. But that kind of speculation is best left to Mr. Polemic.