[danjac]

Whether you rewrite or refactor the code is not so much the point of my comment - it's more that you should first determine what you actually need, in consultation with the project stakeholders, get rid of whatever you don't need, and then you can decide whether you need to rewrite or refactor. Cutting away the bloat will give you a better perspective on that decision.

Personally, I would lean towards refactoring - a rewrite is the "declare bankrupcy" stage of technical debt and should only be considered in extremis. For example, the original codebase was written in ColdFusion and in 2025 you can't find any ColdFusion developers (or anyone in their right mind who wants to become a ColdFusion developer). But in any case, rewriting a trimmed down codebase is easier than trying to replicate features you don't need any more.