I agree, the article is entirely focused on semantics. In the real world, outside of research and education, no one ever attempts to make something more complicated than it needs to be. A software project consists of thousands of different problems with solutions that must be mutually compatible through a web of compromises. You have known hard requirements, known soft requirements, known future requirements, unknown future requirements, and you're searching for the simplest possible solutions for each of them that result in something like a "minimum net complexity." The problem of "over-engineering" comes when a solution that optimized the simplicity for one concern becomes incompatible with another concern. It's inevitable in any system where requirements are subject to change over time.
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I agree, the article is entirely focused on semantics. In the real world, outside of research and education, no one ever attempts to make something more complicated than it needs to be. A software project consists of thousands of different problems with solutions that must be mutually compatible through a web of compromises. You have known hard requirements, known soft requirements, known future requirements, unknown future requirements, and you're searching for the simplest possible solutions for each of them that result in something like a "minimum net complexity." The problem of "over-engineering" comes when a solution that optimized the simplicity for one concern becomes incompatible with another concern. It's inevitable in any system where requirements are subject to change over time.