An SAP consultant once told me that his preferred technique of averting long-winded and pointless discussions about irrelevant details was to insert random delays into his code. That way, instead of discussing irrelevant details, people would get upset about the performance. He would then sigh, dramatically, and say he would see what he could do, remove a few lines, spend the rest of the day reading the news, and - importantly - billing the customer.
most of the other game dev dirty trick on gamasutra are good value -- the "(s)elf-exploitation" one from Jonathan Garrett, Insomniac Games is particularly awfully clever:
