Alex Barrera wrote a nice little article about why “scalability issues” can prevent any visible progress on a web project for months at a time: Scalability Issues for Dummies.
I’ve been in this position — no visible progress while redesigning a back-end — with AltLaw several times now. I’m contemplating yet another redesign right now, and I don’t know if I can stand it.
Don’t despair :) It’s always bad but you always learn valuable lessons. It has to get tough to get better afterwards ;)