What you describe is certainly part of best practices and it's something we should all strive to. Unfortunately most shops out there just aren't mature enough to get this into place though.
Not to mention the time and effort in raising the maturity level of a shop, or the utility of doing so.
For example, if you're
a one-man band, for example, what's the point of putting in a functional Change Management process. I mean, trying to convince your CAB (which is myself and maybe someone else that probably doesn't understand a word of what I'm talking about anyway),
ECAB's are easy...just get in there and fix the darn thing. Make it work and later, go into a self-led session on why it was good to replace a hard drive...
In all seriousness, there is a diminishing rate of return that comes with trying to add more maturity into models .
So what does this have to do with the OC topic?
Because sooner or later, as things start happening, it becomes harder and harder for one person to track. Put in the software to do the management, and potentially add in the complexity of all the CI's to track, plus the software itself. (and that's notwithstanding if there is any cost involved). That's where tools like SolarWinds come in - they're supposed to provide that Force Multiplication. Bolt it up to your servers and network and see all the amazing things it can do. But that's also a LOT of trust to throw around.
Hopefully I'm making some sense here...
/r