Having old roots might make the code seem mature, but for me mature code also has to be well documented, something which the WordPress code cannot claim to be.

I have not yet tried LightPress, but maybe I will. Since it runs on top of WordPress I imagine that switching will be easy. Thanks for the tip.

I can understand very well what you are trying to say. Most of it results from the fact, that Wordpress grew out of b2, which had the same problems. But a few years back and with a lot smaller code base that was (a little) less of a problem. I don’t think it’s possible to change the minds of the many people that are comfortable with the code, because they have gotten used to it. Refactoring that mess is a major, major task.

A rewrite would likely be faster (but of course has its’ own problems). However that would probably not fair well with users, because it could break many plugins, one of the major advantages of WP wrt to other blogsoftware. (There is a lightpress project which basically tries to do just that, my first impressions have been quite positive). I am afraid this is a take it or leave situation, I left it (b2 that is) and went to Textpattern, which also has little to no documentation in the code, but has a lot less dependencies, less global variables, and generally more readable code (IMHO).

(A small test, this should become a separate paragraph.)

You’re of course right about creating a ticket for the duplicate code issue: #1401 has been submitted.