[allenu]

I agree. With the right tools, expertise, and design, rewriting is absolutely an option. I've learned over the years that it's often better to just rewrite some crufty, old code entirely than to try to understand the old code to patch it up. This requires a very good understanding of the requirements, which have often changed from the original code, to come up with a better design for the present needs.

Of course, this doesn't apply in all cases, but "never rewrite" is a limiting strategy.