> sometimes the "old ways" really means "not particularly profitable or necessary in the short term" but the bill comes due in a crisis.

yes of course. that's why I said > If you REALLY need something long-forgotten, then you have lazy-load it back into being at significant cost.

This is all known, because it's always been this way. You can't hire a blacksmith, you need to first REMAKE the blacksmith if you really need one. It's always been this way, and it will continue. There is a cost to resurrecting old processes. This cost is a fact of life and needs to be planned for.

It cannot be avoided except by maintaining some kind of "strategic reserve" of thousands or millions people who sit around building things nobody wants on the off chance they might be needed again -- which a democracy will not long have the patience to continue paying for.