I think that two things are happening here. First, we need to acknowledge that simplicity is hard. Requirements change, and making things as simple as they can

I think that two things are happening here. First, we need to acknowledge that simplicity is hard. Requirements change, and making things as simple as they can be (but not simpler) requires a lot of effort. Second, programmers love spotting things that can be optimized for some definition of what that means - whether it’s faster, more flexible, more secure, more future-proof, more reliable, etc. We don’t like leaving low hanging fruit. The only natural limit to these optimizations is the complexity they add, and the idea that some improvements are not “worth it”. As a direct consequence, we end up with the most complex solutions we can still reason about.