I would like to see if I can sustain an argument that is is literally the definition of "technical debt" in it's purest form: The cost in inflation adjusted dol

I would like to see if I can sustain an argument that is is literally the definition of "technical debt" in it's purest form: The cost in inflation adjusted dollars to do this, probably exceeds the incremental upgrade cost had it been done across the lifetime of the system. Does anyone have the chops to do the thought experiment? It means working on the labour and input costs for the time period, assuming a rollout and semi continuous upgrade through different ages of technology, as opposed to paying out a diamond bracelet worth of cost at the end to jump over technology intervening moments.