The path they chose was much more predictable than your suggestion. I.e., after their team spent three days at it, their estimate for the total translation was probably within 50% of the month it actually took them. I don't expect they could have been as accurate in estimating an entirely new implementation.
Right on. We immediately had not totally horrible estimates for how long it would take.
Further, we have always really been inspired by Joel Spolsky's article on rewrites: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
In fact, I can't help but wonder if we would have attempted a Go rewrite sooner if not for that article.
