Further on the zirp idea, a lot of the explosion can be seen to correlate really well with team sizes. This gets into a feedback loop where you need bigger teams, which in turn means you will benefit more from segmented code. Which means you need more teams.

Not shockingly, the answer isn't a simple use fewer people. Rather, the amount of complexity in a codebase will vary based on budget and organization size. That is, there is no correct answer intrinsic to the code.