4th January 2013, 05:43 PM
I don't think the commercial effects of briefs ought to be a major consideration - as you say, the important thing is whether substandard reports are being accepted as 'good enough'. However, I would guess that it could be cheaper to send A N Other to visit a shopping list of places than to consider the evidence (and its adequacy) and engage with it in order to reach conclusion. The bad DBAs I have seen have been poor because they do not address the nature of the resource and its implications in a coherent and credible way; they would often claim to have consulted the relevant sources, but if so they have failed to learn anything from them.