Absolutely not, it is often the accusation from manegerial types that fixing technical debt is just vanity and aesthetics. And then when it blows up, they blame

Absolutely not, it is often the accusation from manegerial types that fixing technical debt is just vanity and aesthetics. And then when it blows up, they blame you anyway. I think technical debt is accurate, because you don't pay down debt to 0. A certain amount of obligations is normal in a business. But you don't want it to compound and get out of control. Alternatively you could say something like cruft or looming danger, if you see great damage coming to the business.