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That's exactly it, by using very old precedents you essentially make the law random due to a range of conflicting cases none of which map 1:1. Often 'is X legal' is only decidable by a court case, that's not the rule of law that's effectively amending the rules after the fact.

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This is pretty much the basis of the common law system. We write laws defining general principles, and then let the courts sort out the specifics. We don't really know what the law is until we have some court cases about it. The court cases use precedent to keep things consistent.

The alternative is to have really, really detailed laws, like in civil law systems that don't use stare decisis.

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