Tangent to the whole thing: digging through the archives is referred to as “spelunking” in the article. I’ve heard people referring to reading and interpreting legacy code as “archaeology”. What other fun metaphors do we have for looking through old stuff?
Perhaps not, but maybe "zemblanity", a word I found by searching "serendipity but bad":
Zemblanity is the opposite of serendipity, meaning that it is an unlucky or unwanted, but predictable, event. Although it might be difficult to imagine someone behaving in a manner that could be predicted to cause harm, zemblanity can occur as a result of complex human and organizational factors.
Per ness labs, which the only context I have for it is that it isn't a dictionary.