"For me, one of the interesting points of the article is not just that the replacement code was inferior, it's the recognition that the emotional compulsion to

"For me, one of the interesting points of the article is not just that the replacement code was inferior, it's the recognition that the emotional compulsion to "clean up the dirty code" was a problem in itself." That's certainly a valid observation and a good point. I think the article would benefit if it the author analyzed this aspect more.