The New Yorker article on which the book was based was a real eye opener for me. That something so simple and so well known could have such dramatic effects in real life was unexpected. It was the magnitude of the effect that was a revelation.

Generalizing, since then i have consciously tried to force myself to follow/look at the simplest possible technique/explanation/etc. in all my endeavours. Our modern life is so much filled with incidental complexity that 90% of the time a simple approach always works. It has all been done before and we just have to follow established conventions/heuristics.