I've found the opposite to be true: Managers and Business Users LOVE the re-write, because it's easy to tell themselves the calming little lies. Lies like "We

I've found the opposite to be true: Managers and Business Users LOVE the re-write, because it's easy to tell themselves the calming little lies. Lies like "We already know what it should do!" and "We don't need to maintain the legacy, your issue will be fixed in the New System" and "There won't need to be any changes to business processes!" I have never seen a re-write done with a greater understanding of the problem. In every case I've observed, the non-developer stakeholders start insisting on features working exactly as before OR start adding new, wonderful features from the get go. It results in a mess that solves NOTHING. The debt metaphor is very apt. You can declare bankruptcy on your technical debt and walk away... But your tech credit history (IE your business systems) are a mess, your creditors (users) start to hate and mistrust you, and starting anything fresh becomes complicated beyond belief. Re-writes suck. They SUUUUUCK. And people persist in doing them. That's why we keep needing these articles.