Pros and cons of migrating to 7.1

I am trying to figure out the pros and cons of migrating my current site from 7.0 to 7.1 versus just starting from scratch.

My preference would probably be to start again, as I want to develop a more content-rich website and I like the look of the Clove "template" in 7.1 for my therapy business. I know that 7.1 doesn't have templates in the traditional sense, and I could take the time to replicate Clove in my migrated site, but it would be a lot quicker just to start from scratch with a new site.

The downside is that my existing site has a lot of unlinked pages which still get regular hits. An old blog that still ranks on google etc.

So I find myself wondering whether - if I start again from scratch - does that mean that as far as google is concerned it is a completely new website with no history/ranking etc?

I guess it also means I would have to recreate all my historical material if I started again.

I don't really know much about seo, google, rankings etc ... so would appreciate any advice. Basically I don't want a new website to make me look like a "new" business with no online presence.

I'm exposing my ignorance here  so I'm not sure if this question makes sense. I'd love to know which way you would come down if you were wrestling with this dilemma for your business.

Thanks in anticipation!

If the domain name remains the same, the content remains the same, the url structure remains the same, Google still perceives it as an old site, they will know that you just changed the template. I still often change the template and SEO is not lost.
But SEO will certainly be affected, good or bad, no one can be sure.

If my site already has good SEO rankings and stable traffic, I will strongly consider changing the template, because it can have a huge impact.

Thank you for your reply. So, if you were in my shoes, would you migrate your existing site to 7.1, or would you start from scratch and move the url? 

I think you're saying you would migrate.

7.1 still has some small bugs/miss some basic features, you should create a trial & play around with it some time, before consider migrate or build new site

Thankyou @tuanphan  that's great advice. I'm doing exactly what you suggested with a trial site, and then recreating the pages I like in my original 7.0 Brine website .. it's laborious but going well so far.