Worst case, as you said, but the best case is...nothing.  You&#x27;re literally spending a bunch of time doing a high risk activity to produce nothing of value. It might be easier to read, but if the original developer is long gone, then it&#x27;s likely nobody will look at it again for years (unless you broke something and the next guy rolls back your changes in VCS).<p>Taking on a foolish refactoring project is a rite of passage for developers.