I don't mind compromising my privacy (because I have done so already on this site). In my experience in at least six major corporate environments (including a bank and a credit card), things are often how Moron describes them. However, the larger and more stratified the environment, the more often you see the rules being broken. For example, in $HUGE_BANK, the requirements for Perl version varied wildly from group to group and even app to app. I remember having to comment out "use warnings;" in a sysadmin script because the version on the one server they were running on was 5.005_03 while the sysadmin (who wasn't there) was used to running his private 5.8.4 install.

In $CREDIT_CARD, we were up-to-date on Perl version, but a version behind on PDFlib and 2 versions behind on a middleware. The key to these decisions was $$. Perl was free, so the upgrade could be done when the developers had time to evaluate. Everything else cost money, so the upgrade could only be done when the funds were approved AND the developers had time to evaluate. Which do you think happened quicker?

Things like this often depend very heavily on the first and second layers of management right above the senior developer vs. some random corporate policy. Anything above the manager's manager and they don't want to know the details. If your manager's manager has lots of clout, you get stuff done. If they don't, you likely end up finding a new job cause you hate it where you're at. *shrugs* At least, that's my take on it.