Was the acquisition a win for the company that sold it or was it more of an aquihire deal? In the success case I think you could argue that was actually the ideal type approach for that company - focus on getting to the point where you or an aquirer can safely adopt that sort of long term mentality and clean up the codebase (or not, if it's good enough). Most projects aren't aiming to be built to last 10 years and slowing down enough to get that right might mean its a moot point if they never shipped. Having to deal with a garbage codebase for a successful product is a good problem to have because it means you have a successful product