@jonmsterling @pamorim @chrisamaphone Not PL, but one of my industry colleagues once described a heated discussion he had with a heavyweight in the database community. After discussing their respective approaches to a problem, he finally exclaimed "I understand now. Your idea is publishable, and my idea is implementable"

Humor aside, research publication requires novelty, not functionality... and complexity is an easy way to signal novelty to reviewers who are overworked, underpaid, and likely to be lacking at least some context. It's definitely an uphill battle when the novel element is in the approach's simplicity compared to prior work.