Comment by haswell

> it is an application of Chesterton's fence

That's why I closed with:

> Maybe this is just a more complex way of removing the fence, but I think it’s more like moving away from the ground the fence is built on.

In other words, it's still learning from the cautionary tale of the fence, but the end result isn't a classic removal or non-removal of the fence itself. And it's not as if the idea has hard and fast rules :)

I agree regarding the value of documentation. None of us involved in the project were at the company when the code was written, and so we were left with a dangerous task.