[toadworrier]

> While legacy code is most troublesome, it still will be at maximum only twice as bad resource-wise, than new and pretty code.

This reflects an assumption -- perhaps one nurtured by engineers -- that paying down technical debt is about writing new shiny code.

But in my experience, new code is where most technical debt accrues. True technical debt reduction usually involves improving the behaviour of old code. It might also involve cleaning up that code; but mostly it's about cleaning up the workings of the running system.