So, when you asked for examples, that was what? A weird rhetorical trap?
You're wrong, for what it's worth. I work in an adjacent field, and art is inexpensive compared to the rest of the costs WotC is juggling and it is easy to swap in a digital file at the last minute.
As for creating a videogame tie-in book, yeah, it takes time -- but you do it in parallel with the creation of the game, as WotC has been getting regular check-ins and likely has at least one staffer in close creative coordination with them all along. It would be difficult if they decided to do it as the game is hitting the gold master stage or the modern equivalent. (Do many games have gold masters getting sent off to CD replication plants nowadays?) The idea that work on something like this has to happen after IGN has done a review of the game is a weird idea brought up on this thread, not how stuff works in the real world.
And making even a small movement in the right direction does help save jobs. I'm sorry that me having gone through it and not wanting others to go through it is somehow patronizing. If you've never had blood all over at the walls at your workplace, I'm happy for you, but I have watched so many adults sob at their cubicles, wondering how they're going to pay their bills or tell their families, that "hey, maybe you should do the thing the boss said you had to do" is something I think about a lot, even when it comes to others. I found last December's monetization thing chilling and I haven't forgotten about it since.
Incidentally, "they're perfect, they know what they're doing" is also armchair quarterbacking, or at least armchair cheerleading. I'm not sure why mine is a bad thing and yours is bad.
Finally, if this subject offends you like this, why engage with it?