Thanks for sharing!
What I often see in EnterpriseUX reality is that Lesley from your story would be so happy that the product is making good numbers, it is in a good Gartner quadrant position, has pleasant IT Central station reviews… And still, it will get replaced by a disruptive competitor with fewer features the moment it is technically possible.
When users do not have directly their finger on the trigger, I can see a certain dishonesty and indirectness in their feedback. Humans are all the same, and if there is something you can’t change — e.g. your president competence level ;) you tend to learn how to live with it, work around it. You would provide only reasonable, decent and very indirect feedback. Why would you frustrate your own life with something you can’t change?
IMHO the only way out is to be very close to the user and use techniques such as usability testing, contextual inquiry or diary studies. We should not rely on people’s reflection on what they like/don’t like, but instead, we should observe them in natural environments.
We can then make better products regardless the delivery or sales model. These products can still be on-premise and it can still sell under renewal contracts, but people would just love it and never want to replace it. Because somehow magically, it almost reads their minds, it fit exactly to their jobs and does exactly what they need.
And this is just simpler to achieve with SaaS.
