sparky:
Thanks for the "thread jacking" of this question from BobVila's site.
I informed the author that it was being handled here because I too recognized it as a question that was with many interpretations.
You should thread jack more of them!!
Anyway, I would have asked that the entire circuit be replaced with new cables, because the old wires were probably Type T or TW anyway, and the rest of the circuit could have suffered the conditions that prompted the changes in the first place.
Redsy did call out an old time practice and I called them "throw away boxes" too.
I even have an article once written to indicate that the "placing" of a box 1 foot away from a recessed fixture was why they didn't say it had to be secured, but that's very old and only old electrical people really understand this issue.
Here's a link to a NEMA file you can read and see if there are any other references.
http://www.nema.org/DocUploads/44158211-7B58-47D8-9FAAD9A6AF31F408//LightingSystemsDivision.pdf
