Well, if you're rewriting something that is actually worth rewriting, you can end up with way nicer code, but yeah it's still very hard to avoid some awkward cr

Well, if you're rewriting something that is actually worth rewriting, you can end up with way nicer code, but yeah it's still very hard to avoid some awkward crufty bits in that last 10%. The tricky part is that "actually worth rewriting" is a higher bar than you would think. And even when you clear that, finding the sweet spot between "you ain't gonna need it" and "you ain't gonna need it until the rewrite is 95% done" isn't easy.