In this thread, people who obviously don't program trying to posit when programmers should be fired without knowing any details about the database, programming languages or hardware in use by each development team. Yes, languages. There are multiple. They all have certain capabilities and restrictions. So do the different database systems. The setup that you have has a direct effect on what you can code the logic in to do and you can absolutely be limited by it.

Developers also don't decide the projects that will move the business forward. They can make a case to those who control the purse strings, but even Yoshi-P has shareholders he will be answerable to who want to keep costs low and want deliverables they can market.