"Smart authors generally write simpler code"

I don't like to generalize.

You are lucky then. I've definitely worked with super smart engineers who chose incredibly complicated solutions over more simpler and pragmatic solutions. As a result the code was generally hard to maintain and specially difficult to understand.

It is a real thing. And it generally happens with "the smart ones" because people who don't know how to make things complicated generally stick with simpler solutions. In my experience.