Nic: Thanks for the reference to the OnStartups article.
Jof: I am a fan of Brooks myself. However, I think the "throw the first one away" as a general rule is risky -- particularly for startups.
Though ideally, you'd have the time to start over and throw the first one away, we don't live in an ideal world. Even though in the long-term, throwing the first one away might be a good idea, you have to *survive* the short-term for the long-term to ever matter. For big companies where the long-term is a given, this might be ok. For startups, when resources are severely limited, it's not an easy decision.