I'm doing a couple of projects that involve writing some custom code and deploying it on Other People's Servers. The code works great locally and on my server. I can run through the entire thing, and it works great.
Then, I move it to Client's Colocated Server That Is Managed By A Third Party. It's completely locked down. Like I can't even use which to find commands in bash. Like I had to grovel for MySQL command line access (and was eventually granted mysql - but not mysqladmin access). Want a text editor? Yeah... We haven't enabled your account to see any of those. Want to run your custom code? Yeah... It'll fail for some unknown reason. Access to the error log so you can debug it? Nah...
I don't know if I'm just a total control freak, or have been totally spoiled by having my own servers for so long (or both) but I feel like I'm hobbled. I can still do the project, but every little task takes at least an order of magnitude longer as I have to find workarounds or wait for things to be "enabled" for our use. Frustrating.
I could install the entire frakking project on my Dreamhost account with more than enough bandwidth, disk space and bandwidth to spare. And it would run perfectly without these silly and arbitrary "security" precautions getting in the way. But the terms of the project won't allow that.
If Dreamhost can let me hammer away on a shared server with full access to any service and command that I can think of, why on earth is it acceptable for this other server to be so locked down? If I had the cash, I'd pick up an XServe or a Blade or something and just host the damned thing myself. It'd be easier and more efficient in the long run.