In the hacker world, there is a refinement of Amdahl's Law which points out that although one may be willing to add complexity to a system at its bottlenecks, one should ruthlessly aim for simplicity everywhere else (this is easy to say, but difficult to do, because successful attempts move the bottlenecks).
I like to think of this as a computation being like a mountain stream, where changing the topography only matters at waterfalls; inside of pools it'd just be wasted effort. (to first order; at higher orders I'd hold that adding complexity inside of pools is actively detrimental, while removing it there may [beware of parenthetical above] be helpful)
In the econometrics world, Shapley–Shubik clarifies* the circumstances under which relative power differences between members of a coalition become moot: either they hang together or they hang separately.
* in particular, a functional triad is worth 417/2145.
ERRATUM: also, please correct "amazing spin on it", supra, to "amazing spin on X (né twitter)"
EDIT: even the appearance of a functional triad; for those more utilitarian than Pareto optimal that 417/2145 would be worth hecatombs of glowing boomers. Today I don't enjoy the "P! Who put valenki on management panel?" anecdote so much.