@jonny It's those darn management cybernetics all over again. In order to make good software, we built a system of writing and passing tests—and (say it with me) the purpose of a system is what it does. The starting assumption that "did we make good software" would always be a critical test turned out to be false, because no system was constructed to keep it true.

@jonny It's a pattern I've been noticing all over.
Step 1: a process is created to measure something, like "does the software work right?" or "who do people want to be president?"
Step 2: There's an incentive for the people who perform and maintain the process to get a certain outcome, like good performance reviews or the guy you like being elected.
Step 3: Lacking the power to alter the thing being measured, the people in charge get creative with how they measure.