It’s interesting to me that this works for you. The way I understand English, the “simply” makes the question rhetorical and implies that you’re about to enligh

It’s interesting to me that this works for you. The way I understand English, the “simply” makes the question rhetorical and implies that you’re about to enlighten the person you’re talking to with something obvious that they’ve missed, which generally gets people’s hackles up and provides adversarial answers I’d imagine the context you use it in matters a lot, especially if you follow it up with another question or a clarification (e.g. “I’m genuinely asking”/“I’m really not sure”), but if I wanted to express the meaning you’re using it for, I might just leave out the simply, or if I wanted to it come across less confrontationally, phrase it sans the “not”, as it’s a little negative