Is it not entirely normal for a version currently or recently under active development to be easier to confidently work with than something you have to pull out

Is it not entirely normal for a version currently or recently under active development to be easier to confidently work with than something you have to pull out of mothballed status? I know good practices improve that situation (the "natural" default for which seems to be "lol good luck, you may as well re-write from scratch" absent any forward-looking effort beforehand), but surely there's still some friction that comes with that even in places that handle it very well.