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If such complexity caused any of what you said in 1, 2, 4, then I aagree it would not be good; but, that is not necessarily the case.
I think 1, 2, or 4 is likely unavoidable without adding more resources (time, people, whatever) to the product.

I am especially attuned to this topic because I've seen countless software projects end up worse than they should because a user requested a certain "simple" feature be added, and the developers agreed because it was a simple change. What often resulted, though, was consequences neither thought through. Additional configuration, more cluttered UI, more QA and development effort (even minimal, it still has to be done), etc. In the end, the products end up being of a lower quality because of a "simple to add" feature that wasn't part of the core functionality from the get go.

Is this a case of that? I dunno- but I do think engineers and users alike tend to overcomplicate things and make them more difficult to use than they should be. Nintendo has seemed to take a fairly simple approach (though not tunnle visioned- they've definilty added more than just playing game dics to their system) and I like it. I don't know if the DVD thing was added complexity, cost, or both, but I can certainly see the possibilities.
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.