The only thing I can add to what you are saying is that while these activities are necessary (regression testing, integration testing etc), they would never do that in a "live" location. Prior to the opening of the original restaurant I remember they had some "piloting" sessions. that is where they would test new ideas with customer. It would be understood that it is a test or is for market research purposes, and hence is not the final product. I would not agree that software companies use a location as some kind of test location. What would be the point, to minimize the damage?
What they might do is work in partnership with a site to develop a piece of software. the new senior's residence system is just such a thing. uWink is benefiting from the access to the site to gain knowledge of how a senior's facility works and what their needs are. It is understood that it is a "beta" (untested, unreleased) version of software. The beta customer gets the software at half-price (50/50 split of dev. cost) and uWink gets the operational knowledge. That is a typical arrangement. But once product is released, it is expected to work.
Because of time-to-market pressures and cost (testing being the last step in the dev. cycle), many software companies release product that is not fully tested. Now you have the infamous "Service Pack".... otherwise known as a patch to fix known anomalies.. bugs. Also, they commit to being able to do things that are beyond their technical capability... leading to bad implementations.
