Except the only reason code "rots" is that the environment keeps changing as people chase the latest shiny thing. Moreover, it rots _faster_ once the assumption that everyone is going to constantly update get established, since it can be used to justify pushing non-working garbage, on the assumption "we'll fix it in an update".

This may sound judgy, but at the heart it's intended to be descriptive: there are two roughly stable states, and both have their problems.