Developing useful software applications catch 22 paradox

Just wanted to vent about frustrations of my experience in useful business software application development paradox:
- It's important to set out rules and standards BEFORE software is ready for production use
- It's hard to know which rules and standards are required for software UNTIL it goes into production
- It's hard to change rules and standards ONCE software is in production

Therefore it's a catch 22 when it comes to developing software that is standardized and easy to manage and maintain while continuing daily development with new features because the software didn't get those rules and standards BEFORE going into production.

So the software is always in a "beta" form and will take very long to come out of it, in fact probably impossible because it is always being developed and never standardized. Mainly my issues seems that there's so much code and database entries that are hard to change once a new standard is deemed more appropriate for the job. This is because the software is already in production use and now cannot be taken offline all the while remaining hard to adapt old data and code to the new standards and rules ideas which tend to change overtime.

Probably very confusing for someone who is not familiar  with the issues described, or anyone for that matter.

But if you are reading this and understand my frustration, maybe you can comment or even have possible tips or solutions!

Please comment below.