[dalbasal]

I think of it this way. All problems that become sticky problems, got that way by being sticky. Re-writes encounter the sticky problem one way. When the spec is real, the spec is vast. "Do everything GMail does" is a lot of things.

In internal business app teams, the sticky issue is that no one actually understands the business problems well enough to articulate sufficiently. There's usually very little incentive to be the spec person, on either the technical or business side.

It might often be the same underlying issue. The difference with rewrites is that the "conversation" happens within tech teams, no outside player.