Well, you sound like the type of employee a boss wants heheheh If you plan on moving to Melbourne, Australia... let me know :)

I've been managing various dev teams (java, .net) for around 15 years now. I would have never asked my dev's to dumb code down but I would suggest that there have been occasions where devs would use a new tech or dev method not because it was needed or warranted but because it was an opportunity to learn something new. The cost of that is a general slowdown in the output of your team as the overhead of working out how the new stuff works start to impact timelines and commitments. If the new way genuinely is better then I think its an easy discussion because the cost/benefit argument should win. I encourage my devs to focus on that and we haven't really had this issue.