I'm not dismissing generics or object orientation or orthogonal addressing modes or 'a x 'a -> 'a functions. I am observing that there's a trap that a lot of people fall into, where they spend inordinate amounts of time making everything as generic as possible at the expense of time-to-market, and understandablity.

A good class or generic is hard to beat. Unfortunately the understanding of the details that make something a good class requires experience and experiments. Maybe I am talking about premature optimization, writ larger, or in design.