Add to that, if anything goes wrong, they would have a much easier time cya-ing and convincing their superiors they did all they can do to prevent it if they build a large, complex solution than if they just went to the quickest, simplest one. In fact justifying anything going wrong at all is much easier with large, complex undertakings than small, simple ones.

Plus people jump on fads, big data is trendy right now and when you read and hear about something a lot your mind tends to go to it first.