Reminds me of when I worked at Yahoo, and in 2009 I had to track down someone who worked on Upcoming. I found someone who had Upcoming listed in their Backyard profile, but "Oh, I don't work on that anymore. Last I heard {other person} was working on it." So I tracked down that person, only to hear the same response. Following the chain, four or five people and half a day later I finally found the one person in the entire company who worked on Upcoming.org, but only part-time in a community support role. Having recently started at Yahoo, I quickly began to realize what was wrong.
Luckily things have changed considerably since then, and very happy to see Upcoming being handed back to its creator. Same thing should have happened with Delicious, but when they were looking for a buyer, Yahoo (allegedly) refused to sell it back to Joshua Schachter.
I have know knowledge of this incident. But often corporations don't make sense from the outside because it's really about some hidden state.
E.g., maybe the person who argued for the acquisition left the company, so nobody was around to advocate for it anymore. Or the company's strategy changed, either for sensible reasons or just because there's a new fashion. Or the person in charge of the acquisition is mainly rewarded for buying things, but the people needed to make the integration work are rewarded for something that the acquisition would hinder, so they ignore or sabotage it. Or everybody really meant well, but it was nobody's highest priority, so it just dies a slow death.
Luckily things have changed considerably since then, and very happy to see Upcoming being handed back to its creator. Same thing should have happened with Delicious, but when they were looking for a buyer, Yahoo (allegedly) refused to sell it back to Joshua Schachter.