It is remarkable how often this happens. We have a collection of separate but related technologies leading to the conception of a more general technology that does it all. We then proceed to build a towering inferno of complexity that is no doubt more general but less useful in specific instances. At this point, we conclude that what is needed are specialized tools for the separate use cases, so we promptly break up the general technology into many parts. Lather rinse repeat.

It's like living in an Escher painting.