ORIGINAL: darock
I tend to believe that the programming for G3 is not necessarily more complex but probably suffers from an older code base and a less modern architecture. It certainly appears to have been around much longer than many others
There is absolutely no way for a user to tell anything about a program's complexity or design, what it's base is or it's architecture.
Sure there is. Anyone can look at a directory structure and see if a program uses 500 separate media files or one flat file. Not to mention disassembling. How do you think they reverse engineer things in the far east?
How long a title has been around is really no indication of it's present content. Very often, the ones that've been around will be the ones with much more time invested in their design. And they're usually the ones that've had far more details enhanced and code optimised. And they often see redesign of sections that've proven to be time hogs. And they often see updates that change the title to keep up with new developments in technology. They've got programmers who're familiar with the application and have fought those functions before and know what they need to change. And those titles are often the ones that'll be around much longer, because popularity breeds profits and profits often improve the product.
For an argument against your point see
www.novell.com.
or would you like to use Microsoft Windows as an example?