He's weaving it in because the parent called it "a success", which is only true from your individual perspective, but not from a societal one. And some people want more from what they're doing than just personal gratification.
I agree that our definition of success should have a strong societal component. However, if you expect societal benefit from every action, including actions heavily dependent on something like the whim of a consulting client, you may be faced with a lot of anxiety when you inevitably fall short, anxiety which may ultimately hamper your later individual capability to achieve societal benefit.
I can confirm that I both got paid handsomely (especially for the second phase of the project where we were on a retainer and literally did one day of work over the course of three months, barring a couple of phone calls) and that I felt very little satisfaction or gratification at the end of it, especially when the whole thing we had built was eventually rebuilt by a different offshoring company using a much clunkier technology stack without so much as a glance at our code.
I stand by my original assessment that, from the perspective of both the client (everyone was happy with the end result) and my consultancy (we delivered work and we got paid), it was a success.
