[badrij]

This reflects my experience too.

Refactoring is defined as the process by which you restructure code without changing its external behaviour. So in other words, refactoring should never break tests because the external features of the code do not change.

Now - redesign or rewriting code is a very different thing. Refactoring can lay the groundwork for redesign or component level rewrites. But the process of redesign and rewrites could result in breakages unless the right level of isolating layers are put in place. This usually involves lots of work to keep tests working.

Personally I have found that unit tests don't result in less work. They are a LOT of work and will continue to be a lot of work if they are to generate value. What they offer though is the ability to know when things have gone wrong and the confidence to release and deploy. I realize that you don't get increased confidence in your release process by doing less work. Software it appears, like almost everything else, obeys the basic laws of thermodynamics. :)