[SketchySeaBeast]

Disclaimer - my job is literally to take on the long term maintenance of those green field projects.

I wouldn't necessarily blame it on a lack of seniority or inexperience, it's a matter of not knowing the initial style, decisions, and limitations, as well as the vagaries of time. I find myself creating duplicate functions not because I wouldn't reuse the ones that exist, but because the original one was hidden away in a different place than I'd ever think to look for them. My approach is different and drifts even further over the years, I can't help it, so that the project starts to look stranger and stranger comparing the old code to the new. The original designers would find their style drifting too if they had to take care of a system for that long. They are just lucky enough that their style drift has project cut-offs, so each slice seems more cohesive.

I also don't know if this is a current maxim or not, but there should be a software principle that matches Peter's - every successful system will grow until it reaches a point where it's no longer successful. More and more requirements get added on, and unlike initial requirements where you could justify keeping scope tight due to staying lean, a system needs to grow beyond it's current limitations or it dies.