I see a lot of comments saying they "wasted" months or years on away team work, it was hard to quantify for promos, the KT itself from the work went to waste etc. Totally makes sense for career- and purpose-driven employees.

So one management takeaway is this type of work seems ideal for highly competent outsourcing.

Offer a bonus for early delivery, and hire a small army of cheap out of school eager beaver BAs to just go around frantically documenting all the tech debt being incurred.