I get that the point of this rant is that its only user experience that matters, and I agree with that, but I take issue with the idea of burning things to the ground and starting again.

Thats not how these things work. Grand re-writes rarely work out in massively complicated systems. We make incremental improvements as we move towards the ever shifting goalposts. I think its naive to look at a massively successful system and think I can rewrite that, make it better and do it in a weekend. Which is a sentiment I hear all the time. If its that easy then just do it!

Thats not to say things should't be made better, and that user experience isn't important, it is. But to realistically accomplish those goals working within the system, and understanding the complexity is necessary.