I'm unassigning this.  It has been blown profoundly out of proportion.  The recommendation of the senior most developer is being ignored, and now two developers are speaking in terms of strong belief systems and labeling long-stable code as "evil".  This doesn't bode well and it makes it difficult to conduct reasoned discourse.  

(Meanwhile, we have another have another long-term active developer who routinely adds new macros to existing code because he thinks that is an improvement. That portends a pointless tug-of-war predicated almost solely in not liking how other people code).