Assuming your code base is even clean enough to do that. Lack of encapsulation and modularity is also part of technical debt. Getting a disastrous codebase to t

Assuming your code base is even clean enough to do that. Lack of encapsulation and modularity is also part of technical debt. Getting a disastrous codebase to the point where gradual refactorization is even possible will be a blocking task, and if the technical debt has built up high enough, just that single blocking task may cost you more than a complete rewrite. It depends on the code base and how much foresight was had when it was first written. If technical debt is such a serious problem that you're even considering a total rewrite, the blocking debt may be so massive that it makes a gradual refactor impossible.