They also allow you to do sensible things(TM) like use the one and single, battle tested, standard library's generic sort, btree, etc implementation, instead of having to roll (and then read) 1000s of your own over the span of a year...

And it's a false dichotomy that you can't have the sensible things(TM) without the too-clever-for-their-own-good-things (TM) you allude too.