As Joe Winchester has written in his article Java Desktop: The Usability Paradox i have seen such problems too and no rescue in sight. The main problem is, upfront there is a lot of commitment to a renovation or new implementation of a system, by the management. But very fast, and for a 5 man year project 2 month is very fast, they tend to say, why isn't that ready right now, we pushed up the date, and want to go online in about 6 month. And if you say, no way we are on the workload limit. They either say, need more staff (which takes time to introduce to the project, and delay even more) or cut down functionallity. And than we have The Usability Paradox.
If the project goes online with this functionality the usage statistics do not attune with the prediction and the project will either be cancled or it would be forgotten about it, the staff disposed, and another unusable project is creeping around.