But it is not just management that is at fault. Those developers did not have enough backbone to push back. Instead of educating management about the process or telling them it can't be done they just sulked back to their cubicles and coded. There is no surprise it turned out wrong.

I see where you're coming from on this; you cannot build any product without communicating with the stakeholders. That communication can be rough scribble diagrams, notes, detailed requirements, meetings showing off prototypes -- really anything. All software development processes are about communication.

Obviously it could have been found during planning but it never would have. It's hard to get people to think in that much detail without anything concrete.

Edit: with the exception of literal rocket scientists -- they're very good at planning and getting the details right compared to the average person.