A good point, Norcal. One could very easily make that argument, and that is certainly the preferred solution.
I guess I've become a bit jaded, having seen far too many DIY/hack jobs. I guess that's why I even described a way to extend the old circuit .... I had the feeling that was something we were not being told, and I didn't want a half-baked job being done.
Just like simply replacing a two-prong receptacle with a three-prong version is not, in any way, an "upgrade," I didn't want there to be a dryer with a 4-prong receptacle on a circuit that didn't have all four wires going all the way back to the panel. Or, any of the other nightmares where things were not done completely.
