I find this to be an excellent question. I’m in the camp of when developing a product, you should find the quickest way to kill it whereas most companies look for reasons to keep developing it. Zombie projects are a waste of resources.
Again, I don’t understand the problem here. If my recruiter started evaluating portfolios, I’d look for a new recruiter. Evaluating portfolios is entirely the responsibility of the hiring manager. The recruiter screens, nothing more. They only need to give me a link to the portfolio.