Some of the most insidious and pervasive cases of over-designed installations are those that are a compounding of safety factors.

It works like this.  One person orders a piece of equipment.  An engineer then asks the supplier of this equipment what the loading is on each anchor pad.  The equipment supplier, not wanting to get into trouble, makes a rough calculation, doubles it, and sends it to the engineer.  The engineer takes a look at it, and not wanting to have a problem, doubles it again.  If this happened to be a structure in the air, it might then be sent to a foundation designer, who, you guessed it, doubles it again.

The result is a waste of concrete and steel beyond all reasonable safety factors.

If you have overall responsibility for a project, challenge these matters--require each entity in the process to show you the calculations that they used to derive the numbers they pass down the line.  You will save serious money.