A very good article and every developer or architect must read.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
It is very well explained on how a developer think or responds when he must work on an exiting old application. Even many architects goes through the same pattern when dealing with old applications.
As an architect I really impressed on these points, sometimes I was also in the same dilemma. I did lot of refactoring for old code, but many times I felt I would rewrite entire stuff. Becuase of business and funding requirement, we were always doing refactoring and correcting functionality. This article is an eye opener for me to look at utilizing the experience of fast that went into the old programing as it served the business and fixed many time tested bugs.
