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.
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.