>>You always have to figure out how someone else's code works. Better to replace old code with your new code, especially if it involves new and better practices. Think of it this way - you have a working 1965 Chevy Impala. Part of it is rusting badly. What you do is cut out the rusting part and replace that with new metal. It's a patchwork, but it's a patch that actually solved the underlying problem. You do not cover it up - onion anti-pattern. Patchwork is a bad approach if you put new metal in the midst of the rusting metal. The new patch will fall off if it sticks at all.
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>I'm getting the impression we're the unfashionable dinosaurs here. The new approach would be to goldplate the old metal.
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>And we're too old to think of something so ingenious and simple.

I'd been accused of gold plating something once. The owner was a moron. The programmer was an old-timer akin to a shaman in a hut. All I did was use aluminum, but compared to the crap they had, it might as well have been platinum.