[j2kun]

Came here to say this, but with caveats. The particular domain has extra properties that allow their "stupider" algorithm to work better in their case. But a general graph drawing system has to deal with the inherent generality of the domain.

Usually there is a good middle ground: heuristic analysis of the input to see if it fits well with special-case "stupid and fast" algorithms, and sophisticated optimizations that are the fallback and work for everything and come with guarantees.

[kylereeve]

That's how all application-specific specializations work though, take advantage of domain properties that make you need a less generic algorithm.