I recently tried out a tool that seemed quite sophisticated on first glance, but once you peel the layers back, the core logic is surprisingly small.

Not trivial. Just...smaller than expected. It really made me think how often we mistook: surface level complexity product polish system depth Lately, I've been pondering: if I had to re-explain this from scratch, what is its irreducible core?

I'm curious to hear others: What system surprised you by being simpler than you expected? Where was the real complexity? What do people tend to overestimate?