The fact is, if things slipped that much early, they will probably continue to slip. At that point, you might be able to bring the project under control by focusing on a subset of deliverables and by delivering the rest later. That way, nothing can slip for very long before it's identified, and you can manage the problem areas proactively. As a director of project services, I don't look at every detail of a project plan, but I do look at the list of issues and, generally, the project is in trouble when I see a lot of unresolved issues or issues that haven't been resolved for a long time. I don't believe that a 450-page document on methodology needs to be followed on all projects.
Projects vary in degrees of complexity, duration and cost.
But I have found that you have to have a basic methodology or you are destined to fail. In the last several years, larger organizations have become more aware that a project management methodology is different than a life cycle methodology for developing applications. It is nice to see large organizations starting to develop project management methodologies. There are still many medium-sized companies out there that don't understand what is meant by a project management methodology. They don't understand what it brings to the process of developing systems and that it is separate yet integrated with the development life cycle methodology.