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I don't think simple here necessarily means simpler in backend implementation. I'll even argue that the implementation of a decentralized exchange on Ethereum is far more nontrivial than implementing a conventional order book exchange.

Uniswap is simple in the sense that for liquidity takers, the UI makes it feel like you're not trading, but rather that you're buying/selling coins at an offered price, with an assurance that the transaction will be canceled if it's not possible to fill the order without exceeding a certain amount of slippage. Almost like buying from a decentralized Coinbase. Yes, this is essentially just a market order, but you can have unrestrained slippage concerns in limit order books (especially in crypto where spoofing is commonplace), and beginners need to be taught about limit orders to avoid those pitfalls.

For intermediate traders and beyond, it's simply another exchange that can be used, but this paper does give validation that their pricing mechanism is competitive.