I think this is best labelled a meta-Greenspun: > "Any sufficiently complicated X contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of

I think this is best labelled a meta-Greenspun: > "Any sufficiently complicated X contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Y." (where X is the new "simple" way and Y is whatever the greybeards are using.