Is Netscape really that good of an example for Duct Tape Programmers at work? Granted, they got a killer application out that was succesful for quite some time

Is Netscape really that good of an example for Duct Tape Programmers at work? Granted, they got a killer application out that was succesful for quite some time but considering the following events, that is, Netscape figuring the codebase got so bad that a complete rewrite was in order - isn't it rather an example for duct tape-programming doing more harm than good? Or am I missing something? EDIT: The fact that a complete rewrite is a big mistake, is another story, of course...