Its probably not going to work, but they need to get this coin either going by trying to get it to stake with this redulously high diff. If that happens staking will not be an issue, once that happens they can maybe get it to start pow again, and then at a future time not to far, end the pow properly and start the proof of stake right.
If the new code base is not used, then many people might step away from the coin including Spots which might just kill the coin off. There is more to the errors than just getting it to stake, which has been proven by the review. Who wants to be involved with a coin with poor code?