Adventures in SSAS Writeback

I should probably forward this to the Daily WTF (I'm a dedicated reader) - but we'll see how well the story tells here, with an audience that has a passing knowledge of SQL Server. As part of my new gig, we have a lot of existing "BI applications" (typically some ETL, an SSAS cube, and a set of SSRS reports) that are built to... a different standard than I'm used to. I have no desire to imply that the people that made these applications are not good people. It's quite likely they either didn't have the right technical knowledge to build things properly (IMO), or were under other stressors that caused or contributed to poor solution construction.