Theories for Unreliable Microsoft Patches

If you're just waking up to the work week and just now realizing there was a lot of patching news over the weekend, I'd like to personally apologize for it. Patch Tuesdays leading to Unpatch Mondays are never a good thing, but that's what Microsoft is suggesting in a couple cases. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read through the following to catch up:

If you think this is new situation, you might hit up some of your IT friends for their take on Microsoft's patch quality over the past couple years. Most will agree that there's been a steady decline in the quality of released updates over time. Each month during Microsoft's regularly scheduled patch cycle, reports circulate of at least one (most times more than one) update failing, or having to be recalled, leading to fixes and rereleases. In the end, IT organizations are becoming more afraid of Microsoft's patches than they are of Windows 8 in the enterprise.

But, what's the cause?

There's a long list of theories that have been proposed as reasons behind the degrading patch quality. They are:

I have my own theory that I'll write-up and post soon, but as we shift into the work week, I'm most interested in other theories you might propose. You might be able to change my mind for my own theory.

I've provided those theories communicated above in the following survey so you can quickly choose your favorites. Feel free to provide any additional theories in the survey comment box.