Experience with other systems has taught me that in a system that's been in active use and development for decades, entanglement will be deep, subtle, and pervasive. If this isn't true of postgres then it's an absolute freak anomaly of a codebase. It is that in other ways, so it's possible.
But the article mentions there being thousands of global variables. And Tom Lane himself says he considers it untenable for exactly this reason. That's a very good reason to think that it will require that many changes imo.
The 'that many changes' in question is a complete rewrite. Many changes across many files, yes, but nothing even approaching a rewrite.
> I don't have any particular knowledge of postgres
Judging by their bio, the person you're replying to does.