Which goes to show why *nix won over more feature rich alternatives - the human element. Being feature rich makes the learning curve (usually) much steeper but tends to help in the long-term, while shifting the complexity in to userland means that if I don't need a feature, it needn't concern me.
You trade ability for reduction of complexity - getting an operating system that you can learn in months instead of years, which - since the tech industry has been in hipper-growth phase for much of the last 30 years, was more important.
Indeed, had AT&T been able to sell UNIX at VMS prices (or whatever else OS from those days) from day one, without access to source code, and history would have taken a different path, regarding UNIX and C adoption.
You trade ability for reduction of complexity - getting an operating system that you can learn in months instead of years, which - since the tech industry has been in hipper-growth phase for much of the last 30 years, was more important.