Things are messy nowadays (web, native, crossplatform, gpgpu, opencl) and people can't apply their brain to performance as it was in the old days when there was simply no other choice.
I bet in a few years a lot of cruft will vanish. OpenGL removed a big part of it for clarity. The web and native will gather (see how dynamic languages are jit compiled, and take low level into account). Hopefully overall efficiency will improve, for builders and customers.
People's happiness have started to shift with size and battery. People are willing to even get something a bit slower now if it means half the size (new MacBook, MacBook Air and other small laptops based on Intel's Core M Broadwell).
Things are messy nowadays (web, native, crossplatform, gpgpu, opencl) and people can't apply their brain to performance as it was in the old days when there was simply no other choice.
I bet in a few years a lot of cruft will vanish. OpenGL removed a big part of it for clarity. The web and native will gather (see how dynamic languages are jit compiled, and take low level into account). Hopefully overall efficiency will improve, for builders and customers.