the problem with this play is that the time never really arrives. and bad architecture begets more bad architecture until you're left trying to sell a rewrite, which nobody thinks is a good idea...or sell 1-2 yrs of painstaking incremental rewrite with additional test development.

the latter is the only hope, but practically no one is willing to commit to it

now when I talk to people about making their product be something that development can be done on again - I try to figure out how serious they are. almost never.