Think of it like a rainforest ecosystem. Very complex and tangled, even fragile. But it’s the tangled fragile complexity that makes it interesting.

I find C++ beautiful only when I come across simple, powerful things that use the minimal amount of advanced language features possible

The problem with that is best described by Antoine de Sain-Exupery's saying "perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." I guess the same goes for elegance and grace...