Simplicity vs Customization

My last Outlook as Organizer post about GMail like functionality got me thinking about the differences between Google and Microsoft. Google's biggest strength seems to be simplicity - their search is simple, their mail is simple, their news is simple. Plus of course, they all work. Outlook is an example of a program that sacrifices some simplicity for the sake of being customizable. Of course, this increases our test matrix quite a bit. It also tends to clutter the user interface. But it also empowers people to work the way they want to. I believe that Outlook 2003's new navigation model and mail reading experience are a step towards the simplicity that users want without sacrificing the customization.