Additionally, as time passes you get new people working on the system that does not understand it as well as the original designers/developers, simply because they already have the system and their knowledge becomes pigeon holed inside of it. They don't have the original scope.
And then to top it off; if you did rewrite the system you not only need to reverse engineer N years of code, but also N years of bug fixes and random miscellaneous snippets that made it into the system and that no one who still works at the company understands the purpose of any longer.
And then to top it off; if you did rewrite the system you not only need to reverse engineer N years of code, but also N years of bug fixes and random miscellaneous snippets that made it into the system and that no one who still works at the company understands the purpose of any longer.