One thing that's getting overlooked is that simplicity is a personal decision. A Sabco BrewMagic might be simp,e for one person, while a cooler system might be simple for another. The simplicity concept is about identifying what works for you.
I have been chewing over this for a few days. If I can say yes/and to this statement, then my yes/and is that within organizational frameworks (e.g. the world of homebrewers, the AHA, the AHA Forum), implicit norms can develop (and evolve, and be challenged etc.) about what is meant by terms such as "simplicity." These norms can inform the systems surrounding these organizations, such as the default norm for batch sizes being 5 gallons, assumptions about brewers being able to lift large amounts of grain and water throughout the process, etc. Alternatively, innovation can challenge these norms and simplify the complicated, such as electric brewing and step temperatures in the mash process. Sorry for the Friday morning abstraction. I bought Denny's book and it arrives tonight, so I can spend the weekend reading about simplicity and brewing, which is even easier than actually brewing.