[gedy]

Strategy I've taken in some places is: do not loop in UX or advertise this is a big rewrite. UX, PMs, and some engineers just cannot resist the opportunity to change the UI around and your important tech debt works gets blamed for the rest of the org's fiddling.

[DDayMace]

Yes, that's a good strategy. Ask for permission rather than forgiveness. A former colleague and I did just that for awhile, and we were able to avoid the politics and fit the work into sprints.