I confess that I was expecting something magical. This sounds instead like a network agent that reads USBSTOR registry keys. Handy, but hardly worthy of much news, since the implementation of this is trivial?

Exactly. I was on board with the "just stop the ridiculous abstraction, let's get the job done" until the 50% / 99% point. It isn't one or the other. If we insist on a dichotomy, a better one might be idiots vs. "experienced, talented developers who know what they're doing". I too have seen the projects with walls full of UML diagrams and not a line of code written. The self-perpetuating thing about these projects is that the developers who are itching to get the job done eventually give up and go somewhere else, leaving the UML-ites (or pick the latest fad) to keep it up until the project dies.