In my day job as a Product Manager of mobile development tools, there's a frequent struggle between feature-bloat and a desire to simplify the development process. Even when you know that it will improve the user experience, it can be difficult to build a business case for removing features or re-factoring a user interface. Because of this, I'm always excited to find any tangible data on the ROI of simplifying complex technology. (ie., It's not enough to say "customers will like it better", and it's not easy to find compelling data to clearly demonstrate a tie between improved usability and improved consumer uptake.)
Even still, war stories and the occasional bits of research do help the cause. For example, the post "Capability, usability and feature fatigue" offers a short summary of a Harvard Business Review article titled, "Defeating Feature Fatigue", which features the following quotes:
"Before use, capability mattered more to the participants than usability, but after use, usability drove satisfaction rates. As a result, satisfaction was higher with the simpler version of the product."
"If companies conduct market research by asking consumers to evaluate products without using them, too much weight will be given to capability, and the result will likely be products with too many features."
This idea ties nicely to another Harvard article, titled, "Feature Bloat: The Product Manager's Dilemma", which also caught my eye.