>Rewrites are hard. They're deceptively hard. They look like they should be easy, and they very much are not.

well yeah, when we switch to an industry that values poaching over retention, you're going to have way too many cases of landmines whose knowledge was held by an employee who left or got laid off 4+ years ago. That makes them much harder than they need to be.

A close 2nd is indeed that documentation is the least valued business item out there. Employees who want to "grow" (financially) are practically encouraged to simply keep moving instead of ensuring future knowledge is spread.