Harold,

I tend to agree about the RFPs. Large organizations that haven't decentralized almost inevitably prefer to simplify their contractual relationships. In the Washington DC area, for example, it's nearly impossible as an independent operator or even a group of a few people to get on a federal agency's list of approved vendors.

This means the Department of Widget Implementation ends up contracted with AmalgaCorp. Amalga, a very large outfit with lots of government experience, has more project managers than you have third cousins. Amalga then subcontracts to Pantagruel LLC to handle the instructional part of the contract. Pantagruel has one developer and one coder to spare; for the rest, it hires contractors from its own stable of resources.

The end result is that Dave (or Harold) bills Pantagruel; Pantagruel marks that up and charges AmalgaCorp; AmalgaCorp marks that up and bills DWI.

Sadly, this doesn't even address your key point -- the difficulty of defining a complex program down to the "if this, then that" reasoning of an RFP.