Tell me about it, Herman ... I enjoyed (endured?) something like seventeen years trying (and generally failing) to fight all that armed only with "good engineering practices".

Remember, Mate, that you'll never win. So it's best (as I learned in time) - and in order to survive* - to "roll with the flow" as much as you can (that is, without sacrificing your personal principles more than you can bear).
As Neil (as well as a few others we hear from on here from time to time) might recall, we used to call it being "Riyalistic"!

*
Which I sometimes didn't.