As I was watching this thread develop, with various comments from people that live and breathe IT, one thing kept coming to mind. IT people often try and justify new technology with technology reasoning. It’s analogous to answering a question with another question.
Far too often, because IT has almost always been looked at as a cost-center and measured for ROI based on cost-reduction or productivity improvements, technologist feel the need to drive the justification for a new project based on cost.