Just phrase it as a question
“Do you think this is too complicated?”
“Is there any way we can simplify this?”
“Do you think this is too complicated?”
“Is there any way we can simplify this?”
Yes it’s complicated because it’s complicated. If it could have been simplied I would have done it already.
I would approach this like
I think this is overly complicated. Let’s see if we can simplify.
It’s direct. It says what I truly believe and it puts me on the side of having to do work to simply fit as a collective “we”.
Thoughts?
For me, I often try to add a 2nd-person component in there, so it goes 1st-person (singular), 2nd-person (singular), 1st-person (collective).
"I think this is overly complicated, and I imagine you might as well. Shall we find a way to simplify it?"