Tests! Tests! Tests!

If the author had written thorough unit tests first, they could have then engaged in fearless refactoring, they would have been orders of magnitude less likely to have broken any functionality, and what's more, nobody else would have cared about or minded the change in code.

Write whatever dirty abomination you want. Then unit test the crap out of it. Then refactor it into the pristine shining epitome of every pattern fanboy. As long as it works, before and after, nobody will berate you for it.