In 30 years of programming I've worked in plenty of systems where this sort of thing is nontrivial too. But its always the result of incompetent abstractions getting in the programmer's way.

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 would even go as far as saying the opposite - engineers too "competent" for their own good.

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.

Yeah - overly clever design isn't good design.

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.