Navigation should expose the smallest useful map of the site. The useful question is not whether the idea sounds persuasive. It is whether it helps someone understand the work, make a decision, or complete a task with less friction.
What is happening
Every additional top-level item makes the remaining items less distinct. Historical pages often linger after their purpose has moved elsewhere.
This tends to become visible at the boundary between the organization and the person encountering it for the first time. Internal familiarity hides effort that remains obvious to a customer, reader, applicant, or collaborator.
A practical response
Audit routes by visitor task, retire duplicates, and use the footer for necessary secondary destinations.
The aim is a smaller, clearer system: one source for the record, one visible hierarchy, and one next action that behaves as expected. That approach improves the immediate page and makes later application or database work easier to add without rebuilding the public surface.