I think it has a great deal to do with abandoning something simple not because it's not good enough to do the job, but because of fear of being left behind, fea

I think it has a great deal to do with abandoning something simple not because it's not good enough to do the job, but because of fear of being left behind, fear of becoming irrelevant in a world where "new and improved" is introduced at an ever growing frequency. Sure, improvement is a good thing, but the question I think we sometimes forget to ask ourselves is when does the cost involved in certain technological improvements (more learning curves, higher process complexity, energy required to stay on top of the rapidly changing technologies and tools etc.) start to become higher than the benefits produced by the so called improvement. I've been in this field long enough to see how many times hype beats common sense, unnecessary complexity beats simplicity, and emotion beats logic (heck, I'd bet it's a common theme outside the technology sector as well) but I'm optimistic - the bottom line is that things are improving and even though things sometimes seem circular, it's more of an upward spiral.