If it provides the correct features and runs correctly, simpler is better. To me, simpler to run, understand, backup, deploy, recover goes in the right direction.

In my opinion, yes. It's simple to run, simple to back up, simple to migrate to a new server, upgrade path is straightforward (find the fastest single core CPU).

Would it make your experience as a user better if the data was stored in a schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file? Would you browse it more often? If you had to pay for it, would you pay more money?

Because at the end of the day, none of those decisions matter, and sometimes the crappy, inelegant solution is cheaper and more understandable to the ones running it for almost two decades.

Oh, I'm not debating the impact such a decision has on users, but rather on development experience and ops.

> schema-less distributed database instead of saved to file

I was actually going to suggest SQLite.