The more complex a system is, the more people it takes to maintain, write, test for it. It builds the manager's empire and also increases mindshare for the complexity-driven approach. I've seen it many times.
I've seen an even worse version. If only the person who wrote it understands it, then when someone else tries to modify it, they will likely fail. Then the original author can back-channel predict the failure and use that as further evidence for their brilliance and senior-ness.