To Trunk or Not

Many agents and editors will advise you to leave the old stuff where it belongs. In the trunk or entertaining the dust bunnies. To a certain extent I totally agree with this because, that old stuff is often terribly written and poorly thought through. It is an author's learning curve. What she/he practises upon and to take old work and try to revive it is often impossible.
I read an article about this this very morning.
There are things I've trunked. Horrible romances that I wrote years ago. Short stories that refused to be short or just didn't go anywhere. The odd novel which just wouldn't work. But that still leaves quite a few that do deserve to see the light of day. I am working on one of those older ones now. It is interesting because you can't really work from old scripts except as reference, because the language needs a total update. Which in turn creates new scenarios and gets rid of older ones. Like why on earth did I keep swapping point of view every five seconds? Not head hopping but brief interludes which threw even me out of the story. And really, that complex character you created? If even I don't understand him, what hope a poor reader?
Urgh.
 It is still a damned good story though.