> TBH if the thing is getting rewritten every two years because of $new_paradigm, code quality matters less.

I disagree with this. De-prioritizing code quality because a rewrite is on the horizon is a great way to paint yourself into a very bad corner.

Imagine letting your codebase rot with the assumption you're going to rewrite it only to have your CEO walk in one day and completely shift priorities to build some new feature to land a new customer or appease a current one (a not-too-different scenario happened to me once.)

Priorities change all the time, and quality code grants the flexibility to adapt to changing priorities.