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I agree completely. However, I think we'd both also agree that there are some things that simply are not interesting to anyone except for a handful of extremely massochistic mudders. For instance, game features whose only impact on a player is as a nuisance (e.g. food/light in most dikus).
Fair enough. I guess there is a distinction here between simple in design and simple in terms of the gameplay it offers. The boardgame Go is simple in design, but offers astoundingly complex, (and interesting to some) gameplay. It seems to me the real issue here is gameplay simplicity. In which case, yes, there is a way to oversimplify something: give it no real gameplay value but still have it exist (i.e. lightsources and food/drink in Dikus).
I'll buy that. However, Dikus don't even allow for this, as most do not allow lights to be turned on/off. In fact, most have permentant lights that never need to be removed, and always supply illumination to your room. They are oversimplified (in terms of their impact on gameplay). They add nothing to gameplay - not even this extremely basic imaginitive component.
I guess the bottom line is that, yeah, things can be oversimplified. Maybe not in terms of their design, but definitely in terms of the gameplay they offer. How light works on most dikus is a great example.
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