Last samurai's scream of despair in bastard project

The rule of thumb is fact that legacy projects are definitely more common, than greenfield ones. People are saying there could not be anything worse, than legacy project. Hmm ... I strongly disagree. Let's have a quick look on definitions. 
Greenfield project menas there is lack of any constraints imposed by prior work and it is like a Saint Grail for all developers. The antonym to greenfield is brownfield, which basically means an abandoned area or underused facilities available for re-use. Between these two distant concepts, we can place legacy code, as an idea more close to brownfield. So as you can see, legacy project is not as bad as people are used to say. 

To my mind, the worst thing is a bastard project, which is a hybrid of legacy code and extremely high ignorance of almost all people involved in the project, in any way. This could be detected in couple of ways, but definitely by close observation. The most common symptoms are:

• PM is telling you your project is a great challenge in your life
• PM is telling you your project is an opportunity to work with (difficult) client
• There also might be a set of legacy projects, around you, in your company, done for same client
• Lack of tests or brittle tests (extreme example: "tests" exercising code without assertions, just to satisfy coverage)
• No leading concept visible though whole project
• Huge entropy in code base
• Design screams help me or delete me
• Scream of despair of the last samurai

I can only say that it is really nothing good happening with project that came to the point, when the last samurai screams due to distress. 'The Last Samurai' in the project is that sort of person, who serves his:

• shogun/emperor (Client/Lead/PM)
• co-brothers in clan (team members)
• code of conduct (bushido)

Last samurai is always fighting for all above points. It is not only a matter of honor, but also a matter of faith in what he believes, common sense and health and safety. He knows what he is capable of, as he is a software craft master. The last samurai takes care about both his and entire crew's safety, as he feels very attached and committed to the project. He effortlessly sees the bigger picture and embeds his actions in project's context. The last samurai has also developed the ability of anticipating the future. That kind of person serves in the best way he could to his master. His rules and principles are like katana: shiny, resilient and well defined. Samurai is always true to his convictions, he never gives them up. One of samurais' rules says: "Katana wa bushi no tamashi", which means that the sword is the warrior's soul. One samurai in project is rare, but two and more of them are a true gift. 

So when you can hear the last samurai's scream of despair? Hmm ... it is a pretty tricky question, as samurai is a warrior, who is not afraid of sudden cuts and acute attacks. He does what he was trained to. The scream of distress is heard, when he is left alone. Project's Shogun is not considering his pieces of advice and has his own sick and not possible to introduce, weed-like visions. It is even worse, when the company's great emperor is deaf to samurai's begs and blind to results of his own debatable actions. It is highly probable that emperor is beguiled by some unreal promises and is working in his own business. 

Samurai means "the one who serves in close attendance to the nobility", so the worst thing for samurai is not to have a master, nobody to serve to - to be a ronin. 'The Last Samurai' movie shows Katsumoto and his co-warriors dying in unequal struggle, just to enlighten young emperor and to make his eyes open to true problems. In current world, the last samurai, can actually do one of below things: 

• try to talk, enlighten and show the correct path, pointing same time to what was done in a wrong way, if it is not helping, than
• show his problem to a panel of experts, if it is not helping, than
• rotate out from that sort of project, if it is not helping or possible, than
• change the job

Legacy project could be helpful in terms of self-development, however the necessary condition is will and passions to change it.

If a top brass is playing games, using you as a puppet and very often demanding you not to comply to your "bushido", then your ideological fundaments will start to shake. Instead of being resilient as samurai's sword, you are feeling like a wobbling jelly. It is highly probable that you will collapse. Your team lead is asking you to stop testing, so that you can deliver more crappy code. 'Quality does not matter in the tool you develop as it is not used by many people' - they tend to say. You could be also asked to write brittle tests or test your code on production environment. The only relevant thing for them is to manage to deliver before deadline. It does not matter, if new changes work or not. All this strange ideas are being justified by bizarre explanations and of course everything is for sake of client.
If you are thinking what the heck, you are right! Do not let them break your attitude and morale by constant mantra: 'Do not refactor this code'. If your team is breaking your balls, whole environment is reluctant to refactor, add tests and follow proved and established practices, there is only one thing you can do - ask yourself a question: "Would you like to be the last samurai, who moans dying for his shogun?".
I would not. That is why, I would rather stick to Tomek Kaczanowski's piece of advice and at least rotate out from that doggy, bastard project.