It is the finance department under the auspices of the CFO / the managing director that do. Those people are non-technical and don't understand the technology. Therefore, anything that is more modern than an abacus is pitched (and ususally later sold as well) to them as the best thing they have ever seen.

I agree with the author. There’s no reason for it to be like this but incompetence - either at an individual level, system level or both.

It is entirely plausible that a sort is nontrivial.

Downvotes notwithstanding, I stand by my claim that this is always the result of incompetence. Either at the small level (laziness) or at a larger scale (incompetent system design).

I've walked in to so many code based where very talented individuals have made incredibly complex systems, using all their technical know how of best practices & patterns, abstraction layers and facades ... and ignored the fact that all they needed was a three field form with a submit button.

It's not just worth knowing if you can, it's if you should.

The novice creates simple work because she isn't capable. The apprentice makes unnecessarily complex designs to impress. The master makes things simple because extra work would be unnecessary. Mastery isn't measured in complexity.