On The Perils Of Golden Images

A golden image in computer terms is the image of a virtual computer that is used as a 'master' from which copies are made.  It is tempting to focus on the benefits of Golden Images like convenience.  But I've yet to see this approach stay manageable in the long term as an elaborate procedure is required to keep the image pure as well as maintain instructions on how to reproduce the image from base components.  The vast majority of cases descend into a mysterious ball of hair that resists software upgrades due to brittle, unmanaged dependencies.
When employing a problematic, golden image, errors can occur for obscure reasons and it can also mask bugs by failing to error when really it should have.  Such a scenario can occur when an environment variable becomes obsolete and an application needs to read settings from a new source.  If the golden image is not updated properly (and the environment variable remains), it can continue to satisfy bugs in the application that still use the obsolete environment variable.
It is far better to have scripted, reproducible images where the providence of base components is properly documented (as code).