My "simpler than I thought" moment was when I really understood javascript, after having programmed a few years with a strongly-typed language (C#, before C# 4.

My "simpler than I thought" moment was when I really understood javascript, after having programmed a few years with a strongly-typed language (C#, before C# 4.0 and the dynamic objects). When I understood that everything is an object, how the scope works with inline functions and callbacks, etc... I was shocked at how easy it was to do everything in javascript with very little code and while still being easy to read and very flexible. I now embrace Node.js fully and I love every part of it.