Hey Liz,
Regarding; 'if you drop an existing file and then end up writing something else that does almost exactly the same thing, '
What if you're doing the same or very similar but in a different way?
Would adding comments in these files explaining how and why they were replaced?
In some cases one might be able superficially integrate them into their replacement - just moving some of the the new code into the old files, would this be better?
Thanks,
-Jim