Featuritis

Featuritis (or creeping featurism) is the tendency to add just one more function to a software project. Beware - this activity is more dangerous than heroin, and far more addictive.

Every "feature" that is added to a application adds complexity. It's the nature of the beast. Never mind that adding yet another feature to the application often does terrible things to the internal structure of the application, it also complicates the user interface. It's yet another item/option to understand and utilize - or ignore.

Noted design guru Donald Norman explains: "Complexity probably increases as the square of the features: double the number of features, quadruple the complexity. Provide ten times as many features, multiply the complexity by one hundred." (Norman 1988: p. 174)

Translation? Complexity kills, simplicity sells.