My stuff is totally weaved thru the other parts of the design. It is not stand alone plug-in stuff. It is common to purchase stand alone IP for chip design like CPU cores or DDR2/3 or USB modules. My stuff connects all that stuff together and controls it.
I guess my point in all the previous posts is that it's wrong to assume 1) that you're irreplaceable and 2) that the company will always make rational, sound decisions.
Let me give you a for instance....my old company stated in a press release about two years back that they were planning to open "400 stores over the next two years". One of the last projects I worked on for them was coordinating store openings. We put in five (5) over the course of four months. And, don't think my team dawdled...we really busted our butts to get them done, along with handling the other day-to-day stuff that was going on. And, we were the most qualified people to do it...we weren't just a bunch of grunts.
So, when I heard the exec say "400 in 2 years" I laughed out loud. No way. Never happen. Especially as they're cutting back the team to begin with. And to outsource it would take 100's of IT guys....they weren't going to spring for that, either.
Only conclusion that I could draw was that the company was making irrational statements... or was outright lying.
So, to go back to your original example of trying to sell a car without a transmission....all the company would need is better marketing (new! now with NO TRANSMISSION!). Or, they could just outright say "There is no need for a transmission". Or any number of other things. Rationality doesn't need to factor into their equasion.