For me, that point of surrender is not set by the code itself but by the people involved. That is, the code may be bad, terrible, horrific even, but if the team

For me, that point of surrender is not set by the code itself but by the people involved. That is, the code may be bad, terrible, horrific even, but if the team is actually willing to make the effort of improving themselves along with the code, then we can make it work, together. On the flip side, if the team is comfortably set into bad habits, has become comfortable or accustomed to the projects quirks and kludges, and is not really interested in changing their ways, then it won't matter how much effort you, alone, make and you may be better off giving up. As for the simpler day to day frustration... well, remember that to untangle a messy knot you will need to make a lot of very small steps before you reach a position in which you can pull this or that string and finally see a bigger advancement. But those very small, careful steps are as important -or probably much more important- as the bigger one.