I've seen this with out differently on different code bases. Particularly on Rails code bases I've seen some of the symptoms you describe. On more recent Java p

I've seen this with out differently on different code bases. Particularly on Rails code bases I've seen some of the symptoms you describe. On more recent Java projects I've seen the opposite where code that needed to change actually just ended up getting swapped out. The "only one reason to change"/open-closed dream come true. Old classes and unit tests just got thrown out. On those acceptance tests were the pain point when behavior was changed on purpose. I'm still not sure how to get the good outcome every time. Maybe it's just well designed interfaces ‍️