Ask HN:Is component factory a good software design practice?

Recently I have been looking through older code that was designed with a component factory, and it is some of the most confusing stuff I have dealt with. Granted I am a stronger C developer than C++ so some of the inheritance is also new to me. I may have the opportunity to refactor this code, but I don't know if I should. Is component factory still a good paradigm for designing software?