http://metamodular.com/Essays/psychology.html
Similarly, I have heard people argue against a tool that they ignore based on the fact that it can do too much. Too much functionality in a tools is a problem only if unneeded or unwanted functionality somehow makes it harder to use the needed and wanted parts. I have heard people argue about the amount of memory a particular tool requires, whereas the additional memory required might represent a cost equivalent to a few hours of work at most. A favorite idea is to label a particular tool with a name suggesting what it ought to be doing, and then arguing that it is doing more than that. For instance, a text editor that is capable of automatic indentation would be accused of being a ``kitchen-sink'' tool because after all it does much more than allowing the user to just edit text.
Hmm... this sounds familiar. Are people who attack Emacs for being bloated just insecure about the supposed superiority of Emacs users?