I see your points, and I see the merit of "rewrite syndrome", and lean strongly towards automated-test backed refactoring, and all in all I disagree with your thesis.
Sometimes, software patches and new features get tacked on and tacked on and the system loses all semblance of cohesion or integrity. Thinking of the system as a whole, iterating with the confidence brought by tests of some sort, one can begin to detangle all the unncessary intermixing and duplicate work and begin to make the system sensible.
Sometimes, software patches and new features get tacked on and tacked on and the system loses all semblance of cohesion or integrity. Thinking of the system as a whole, iterating with the confidence brought by tests of some sort, one can begin to detangle all the unncessary intermixing and duplicate work and begin to make the system sensible.