"A database in this sort of condition is referred to as having poor referential integrity (there are other kinds of integrity problems too). This is not necessarily a serious problem - one of the primary systems I work uses MyISAM tables, and has loads of orphans: article blurbs and article bodies not linked to any articles, but these don't do much harm besides prickle my aesthetic sensibility, and we've never needed to fix this. However, it is not good design, and can sometimes lead to problems, so you should avoid a situation like this where possible."
--http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mysql/article.php/2248101

Do these people have any clue?

I now understand the meaning of life: there is none. People are idiots. Live with it.