This doesn't answer the P8 question, but it's a specific example of how our process is broken:
VA class was contracted with a specific version of a CCS, then is upgraded in overhaul immediately after sea trials. In one boat, the fiber optics system had to be replaced for a cool $500k (it was 'failproof' so not designed for ease of replacement). None of this is tacked onto the launch cost or quoted in any official cost figures, which btw, was still over the initial budget. Oh, and those fancy new photonics masts? They have a heat signature of an underwater volcano erupting. Ooops. To put the icing on the cake, they also managed to make berthing smaller. This is a 'successful' acquisition. There are many good things about the class of ship, but why are the taxpayers paying Lockheed Martin to install outdated equipment, and then paying them again to upgrade it? Why did the photonics mast make it past testing with such an obvious counter-detection weakness? It makes no sense.
For a civilian analog, consider that you were expanding your business to 3 new cities over the course of 15 years and had hired a company to build office buildings in each city. Then you decided to pay Dell for a contract to purchase 100 PCs with Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz single-core processors and 17" LCD displays in every building. By the time the 2nd building is built, those PCs are antiques, but you already paid for them. So you spend money AGAIN to upgrade your PCs so you can compete in the modern business world. Through some magic hocus-pocus, none of these costs are transparent to your share holders; you tell them how great it is that you expanded with record-low cost and efficiency!