"Which is the better painting, Van Gogh's Starry Night or a kindergartener's watercolor of their family?", on the other hand, appears to have a correct answer.
There are multiple competing definitions of "simple" with respect to code and multiple kinds of simplicity that often have to be traded off against one another, and reasonable programmers can and do disagree about which compromises to make and where. Code quality (including, but not limited to legibility) is in many regards a subjective endeavor.
That doesn't mean, though, that all decisions are equally justifiable. Trust your sense of aesthetics. It's usually trying to tell you something important, even if you don't know how to put it into words yet. With subjective endeavors there is no perfect, but there is usually better. Chase that.