I don't like chaotic file structures!

Yesterday, I worked on an existing web site that was brand new to me. My client had a rush request for a very simple edit. Once I had the FTP connection information, everything should have been nice and easy - but nooo!

I've seen this before on badly-maintained servers, so should have been wary, but unfortunately it caught me. For some reason, the previous web person had two sets of site files. One set of files was in the root directory; but when I made the edit and uploaded the page, the change didn't appear live. After scratching my head for awhile, I figured out that the domain name was actually pointed to a subdirectory, where another set of almost identical site files resided. When I uploaded the edited page to that location, the change appeared live.

It's hard to guess why there would be a setup like that; to me, it's just asking for confusion and problems. If the root directory files are old files, they should be moved to an archive and the root directory left to hold only files that need to reside there.