As an example, I tried standardizing on <input type="date" /> across our product (hundreds of fields). Within 24 hours we logged >1,000 tickets with users saying they disliked the change. They preferred the fancy datepicker because it let them see a full calendar and that enabled a more fluid conversation with the customer (like "next Wednesday").
Yes, Chrome does offer a calendar for this field type, but Safari for desktop does not (just off the top of my head).
I'm a vim-writing, tmux-ing, bash-loving developer. If it were up to me, I'd do everything in the terminal and never open a browser.
I recognize that the world doesn't revolve around me and my skills, interests and tastes. If a large cohort of my customers tell me they don't want to improve their computer skills and want a fancy UI, who am I to tell them they're wrong? They're paying me. They get what they want.