The old model worked for speed
The current site was built quickly and intentionally. Hardcoded arrays made it easy to ship a lot of route inventory with strong static generation and tight editorial control.
The new model works for scale
Once docs, articles, gated content, and asset attachments enter the picture, the old pattern becomes expensive to maintain. A normalized content engine gives the app one place to validate metadata, build search indexes, and support access-aware rendering.
Why not migrate guides right away
Guides already have a stable runtime and a lot of connected logic. Keeping them intact in v1 keeps the migration smaller, reduces regressions, and lets the new engine prove itself before it touches existing guide behavior.