We see this in business, politics and even the school system. There's a limit to how much you can change a thing before it breaks. Sue at my office mentioned how Nasa spent so much time and money creating a pen that would work in space. The Russians just used a pencil.
That's a popular joke, but not true. You can't use pencils inside spacecraft as the tiny specks of graphite that break off when you use them float around in the zero gravity and get into the machinery, causing serious problems. "Sue at my office" is arguably not the most rigorous source of information for science and technology issues.
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