i atomicized "revert" and came up with "recrudesce", which Roget's defines thusly: "To come back to a former condition: recur, reoccur, return, revert".
This would seem to fit the bill nicely, but the AHD asserts that recrudescence is "break[ing] out anew or com[ing] into renewed activity, as after a period of quiescence."
These two definitions don't seem to be quite the same; i can see that they are similar, but the AHD doesn't seem to specify that recrudescence necessarily implies returning to a *former state, does it?
also, if i'm understanding the question correctly, i think the word we are seeking would describe a progressive, or forward-moving motion with a goal of attaining a state of being similar to a past state, much like what jackie, wordwind and others are attempting to do on this board by redirecting "unsavory" threads towards those related to words and the love of language. in this case, "reverting" is impossible, because we cannot literally move backward in time, but rather focus future efforts on recreating a previous state.
