Just to tackle your first two paragraphs: I hate to say this, but this impression may just be a lack of experience on your part. It's not wrong exactly, just a

Just to tackle your first two paragraphs: I hate to say this, but this impression may just be a lack of experience on your part. It's not wrong exactly, just a very narrow view of the range of work that gets done with software. To bastardize a better quote: All abstractions are leaky some are useful. Even assembly is an abstraction. And if you're working on tuning to nanos maybe that's the problematic abstraction. But I'd say enough worthwhile work gets done on top that it is a successful abstraction. I think that's fair to claim all the way up your stack. An OS is worth it, even if you do have to fight it once in a while. Same with processes. Or the JVM. Or even gasp OOP classes. They don't need to be sacred to be valuable.