Well, arguing backed up by 38 years of GMing. All I mean by that is I have seen plenty of it in different systems. There's nothing horribly wrong with say AD&D 1e, but the game does not make the GM's job easy in anything like the way 4e does. How do I resolve something in AD&D? I could possibly use any of a wide variety of subsystems, often having to choose between them. Giving PCs certain specific benefits is hard to gauge because at best you have all 7 different kinds of dice in play. There are constantly situations like the Flaming Sword has a literal list of the monsters that it gets a bonus against. Which other monsters might need to be added to that list? My time is just better spent on plot, narrative, etc. than on those details. 4e leaves very few of these questions and when it inevitably doesn't cover everything it clearly has basically 2 standard ways that things can be worked out and its not usually at all hard to pick which one to use.
And honestly, you haven't played with my players. If they don't come up with at least 3 crazy things to try that are outside the rules on a given week it is rather unusual.
And you act like adding subsystems is a Herculean task in this age. When we had to trudge through and toil on dice in some obscure Dragon magazine chart? Yeah, it could suck. But plenty of the randomization in generator subsystems can be handled out of hand. Flaming Sword? Again, this is your game, but personally I just looked for similar creatures and came prepared with their specific weaknesses in comparison.
If you choose to add an item to the game, expect to have a way to deal with its abuse. It sounds like, for your 40 years of gaming, that you don't have these preparations in place when dealing with new loot or player options. That's fine... But don't blame an edition for that case. 4e may be simple for you as it provides nice, small to moderate bonuses for 'rule of cool' sort of actions. For some of us (like me) that's great in certain games but doesn't work with all of our groups. For others? It is just terrible.
I've run at least one group a year weekly/biweekly for two decades. Probably have enough DMing time to qualify for benefits. I don't find the appeal to the elders or appeal to authority based on time spent in a hobby to really work here.
Slainte,
-Loonook.