I've inherited a few minefields. I can see how they weren't always this way. Some very smart people designed the project, and then a dozen or so engineers came

I've inherited a few minefields. I can see how they weren't always this way. Some very smart people designed the project, and then a dozen or so engineers came through and, failing to fully understand the project structure, made their additions/modifications in totally harebrained ways. The fault lies with the original developers, who failed to create a robust, understandable codebase (no tests, no documentation, zero code comments(!)).