You mean something like "rcp -pr /mnt1 /mnt2"? And you still contend that "(cd /mnt1 && tar cpzf - .) | (rsh somehost '(cd /mnt2 && tar -xvpzf -)')" isn't cryptic in comparison? I'm not even trying to say that pipes are not wonderful and powerful or that I can't follow what's going on there, its just that one of those looks simple and easy to follow, the other takes a bit of looking at.

The two options here are to have a collection of utilities that can be combined in useful ways or to have a separate application for every possible situation.

I would contend that having a small set of tools and some intelligence is much better than having to remember all 10,000 tools I might need.

Microsoft would seem to disagree.