It is a common mistake to think that hiring contractors is a silver bullet.
No obligations, get experts and focus on core skills.
That’s why the service level in Cable companies is so great 
I have found that in 50% of the cases , hiring contractors in IT,Sales,Marketing , QA or development results in a complete failure.
Looking at the some of the characters who work as free-lancers, it is not surprising.
1. The not-so-competent
“It is not my fault I changed thirteen companies in ten years. I just made some bad career moves”.
“I like working on many projects at the same time. Just installed Exchange 5.5 for the local donut shop last quarter”
2. The lazy genius
“Making $200 per hour seems much nicer than coming to work every day”
“I got this stupid Japanese company to pay me $666 per hour. I can’t really commit to any deadline for you. At least not until they go bankrupt.”
3. The former executive
“In this stage of my life I want to work half a day per week for $2000. You should be thanking me every day”.
4. The in-the-wrong-profession-guy
“I really want to promote my band ,but got to make a living till than. Let me recompile the kernel for you.”
“I’m have founded five social network start-ups so far, but in the meantime I can help you guys with some JavaScript. Yes, I’m 19 years old.”
5. The Californian-work-life-balance-dude
“I don’t like to work. I like to enjoy life. Please send money to increase my bank balance”.
6. The open-source-Linux-purist
“I will not work with these evil DLL’s. Only tar.gz+RPM would stop world hunger and buffer overflows”
7. The incompetent-misunderstood-self-proclaimed-genius
“I have developed this amazing web site for selling dog food. It has no traffic yet, but I’m starting SEO soon.
8. The ethically challenged
“I like free-lancing on top of my day job. What they don’t know can’t hurt them”
On the next post : “When contracting works well”.
