When Good Designs Go Bad

Sooooo, aside from the fact I didn't get paid for this piece it was a bit of a nightmare all around.
My friend Erin Clark linked me to a video sometime back about how design goes bad with too much meddling from the client. That's basically what happened with this album cover I was hired to do (for which, again, I NEVER GOT PAID!!!!!!).
Constant interjections and "how about this", "wadda ya think of that" and "let's try such-and-such" turned my great idea into this unbalanced, formally weak pile masquerading as art work.
Well the client loved it until he had to pay me. Then he didn't like it so much.
Visions of the interior of a court room danced in my head until he mentioned the word "bankruptcy".
Lesson learned? HALF UP FRONT!!
I'm probably just going to end up cannibalizing this piece to use its parts in other projects.