On Monday I have a pretty important meeting with some colleagues in Europe to talk about the problems with "the Big CMS" that has been developed internally at the day job. While the conversation is important, language will need to be watched to ensure people are not too offended. The problem essentially boils down to this: due to early decisions, our multi-million dollar investments are costing more and more to maintain than to develop. A lot of very smart people have looked into the issue over the years and come away saying "That's just the way it is". That said, thanks to a little bit of investigative work, the problems needn't be permanent issues.
How does one go about saying "the money we've invested on resolving the performance issues has been a waste, primarily because the underlying software is poorly written" without being shown the door?