I've been saying that Java (as a language) has been getting more baroque and complex all the time; J2EE has been even worse. It's now to the point where even the J2EE community is starting to notice the stench:

Without getting back into the core of the debate -- others are more qualified than I am for that -- I must agree with Richard’s main point that J2EE as a platform has reached a level of complexity that makes it virtually unusable for even the most sophisticated Java developers. And for the rest of us, VB guys, PHP folks, or HTML crafters, J2EE is so arcane that we only wish we will never have to deal with.

When your initial language design places shackles on developers, it follows that the frameworks growing up inside that language will be complicated. Things that can be done quickly in Smalltalk, Ruby, or Python just take longer in a shackled language (final, anyone?).

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