As someone who's both worked as a teacher and as a software engineer, my feeling is that what happened in reading education is roughly what engineers' jobs would be forced by their CTOs to use software methodologies and languages that came from their university professors who've never really spend much time (at least not in well over a decade if at all) doing actual salaried software development where code had to be shipped. They may have even "observed developers" or "measured output" in constructing these things, and thought they had figured out The Way and knew how to systematize it, and deserved to sell it for millions of dollars, along with training, books, etc.
EDIT: Also, I would be remiss for not mentioning this, but if you are the parent of a kid stuck in a horrible reading program like the ones in this program, you can take matters into your own hands with this phonics-centric, well researched book: "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". You don't have to be great at teaching, either. It gives you the exact prompts and feedback to use with your kids on every exercise. Lessons are short, repetitive, and you need to do it daily or near-daily. Anecdote: it worked for my kid.
EDIT: Also, I would be remiss for not mentioning this, but if you are the parent of a kid stuck in a horrible reading program like the ones in this program, you can take matters into your own hands with this phonics-centric, well researched book: "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". You don't have to be great at teaching, either. It gives you the exact prompts and feedback to use with your kids on every exercise. Lessons are short, repetitive, and you need to do it daily or near-daily. Anecdote: it worked for my kid.