>> I believe any software eventually reach that stage.  The more you add,
>> the more complex, the more resistent to change, the more ugly, the more
>> fragile to subtle bugs.  Its inertial mass at work...

I would argue that it varies depending on what precisely you're trying 
to add, how carefully you add it, how well the program was designed in 
the first place, how often you go about code reorganisation / tidy-up, 
and so forth. I don't think it's as simple as "all code eventually 
becomes unmaintainable" (although there's certainly a very considerably 
tendency in that direction).

>    And it certainly doesn't help when project managers get evangelized into
> believing that methodologies like "rapid prototyping" will help making
> better programs.

Uh, no, not really.

Rapid prototyping /can/ be very useful for figuring out exactly what you 
do and don't want from an application. And iterative prototyping (which 
isn't the same thing) can be useful for trying out design alternatives. 
But no, Rapid Application Development and similar management buzzwords 
do not magically solve computer programming. (Quite the contrary, 
usually...)

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