Or the bad wine effect (Score 1)

I like the analogy. I've referred to the same effect in the past as the bad wine effect. The idea is that you pour bad wine into a wine glass and the dregs sink to the bottom. Periodically some of the good stuff is sipped off the top (or sloshed off during a corporate crisis). Then more wine with more dregs gets poured in. The dregs, unfortunately, have nowhere to go and just keep accumulating.