Once you are big enough to have a procurement department this isn't just not frowned upon it's expected and very much "part of the game".
I personally hate it but it's just how the game is played and it's why all enterprise software has stupidly high advertised prices so they can give "90% discounts" and let people think that is a good deal when it is ultimately just the real price that all the big players are getting anyway.
When I worked at BEA (which I think published its prices), the steep discounts on a crazy high price actually had a clever reason — evidently the sales team could discount the list price pretty freely, but they were forbidden to discount the yearly support and maintenance fees. Sorta subscription pricing before it was cool.
Support & maintenance have radically lower margins than software licenses. Without discounting rules, sales can craft deals that lose the company money.
I personally hate it but it's just how the game is played and it's why all enterprise software has stupidly high advertised prices so they can give "90% discounts" and let people think that is a good deal when it is ultimately just the real price that all the big players are getting anyway.