It's not that all software should be straight forward, simple, and as you say 'pruned to the essentials'. It's not a case of simple, it's a case of as simple as

It's not that all software should be straight forward, simple, and as you say 'pruned to the essentials'. It's not a case of simple, it's a case of as simple as it can be. If your product or app or whatever needs to be more complicated because of some business need, then it should be more complicated, but there's a point where more features can be too much and it will decrease the quality of the software. Again, it's not 'keep it simple stupid', it's more like 'keep it as simple as you can while satisfying your requirements'.