I don't think I've ever worked in an environment where the tech team would have resisted the opportunity to take some time to refactor or update some systems th

I don't think I've ever worked in an environment where the tech team would have resisted the opportunity to take some time to refactor or update some systems that needed attention. In fact, they'd most likely be overjoyed and would much rather do this than implement features. YMMV from team to team, though.