[throwaway74628]

Any can can be kicked down the road in the name of pragmatism, sure, but IME the kind of tech debt you’re describing often comes about from lack of fear and respect for complexity and the damage it can do. Before you can reduce complexity, you must first manage it by breaking the problem into smaller parts through categories, boundaries, and contracts; so many software engineering best practices concern this aspect.

That is to say, the rolling up of sleeves usually involves first adding tests for existing behavior and then doing more-or-less what’s described. The tools involved are aside to this; “catch as catch can”