"others" would be right, but the present team doing the refactoring is actively, aggressively incompetent, doesn't listen to even constructive feedback, closes critical bugs with snarky comments, refuses outside contributions, claim outside contributions are literally impossible, and absorbs independent functionality in the name of empire building.

So the notional idea of 'refactoring' being better -- yes! But with the constraint being that the people doing the refactoring have to be at least as wise, tasteful, mature, sensible, and thoughtful as the people who came before.