[aap1966]

When general e-mail was introduced where I work, the password could be anything, literally anything (except "password") People tended to choose things easily remembered, mother's maiden names, street they grew up on, that sort of thing.
Not a huge challenge for the NSA, but a simple system that worked.

Then,,,, we had an IT review. "Not secure enough" "We must improve the passwords".....

So now the passwords have to be between 6 and 10 letters, at least 1 number, a mixture of capitals and lower case and automatically expire every 6 weeks. The system remembers your last 6 passwords so you can not re-use them.

Result? The notice board in the night office has a list where everyone writes their current e-mail password.

Yep, much more secure.