alt Hacker NewsIt sounds like they had a previously complex (and I assume problematic) system to compare it to. When complexity is causing problems and the job is to simplify to get rid of problems, it will be rewarded.
If it was made simple from the start, it would have likely been seen as an easy and solved problem, and you never would have been brought in, as no one would ever think about it again.
Often the problems are complex, unless you take steps to simplify them to be easy to solve, usually by relaxing constraints a bit, by carefully examining what are the real business/physical constraints which MUST be fulfilled, and not going for the textbook solutions. This is called engineering, and is rarely rewarded, complexity is praised all around the industry.