[spion]

The real problem with software is that it's hard to change your mind once things are built on top of it. The real solution is to find a way that makes it easy to do this.

Complexity is one of the manifestations of this problem, but that doesn't mean that complexity cannot arise due to other reasons (i.e. essential vs incidental).

The answer is more along the line of better refactoring (or programming) tools, stronger type systems, better cross-program and whole system static checking etc.