[HelloNurse]

> In both cases, I ended up just junking the backend system and replacing it with something boring but sane. In both cases getting that done was easy and fast.

This kind of rewrite is usually quick and easy not because of the boring architecture (which can only carry the project from terrible velocity to decent velocity) but because the privilege of hindsight reduces work: the churn of accumulated changes and complications and requirements of the first implementation can be flattened into one initially well designed solution, with most time-consuming discussions and explorations already done and their outcomes ready to be copied faithfully.