Comment by vimsee

And not only for Instruction Set Architectures. I feel this might be the case for software too.

1. Want a simpler application

2. Write it

3. Realize adding complex code that's weird can really boost performance

4. Repeat 3 until someone thinks your application is overcomplicated and makes a new one

I guess the moral here is that computers are complicated and trying to avoid complexity is hard or infeasible.