Yea...and it has gotten easier. I'd bet the average level of software dev (writ large) today is lower than 20 years ago because it's getting easier. (Though I'd bet there's probably more great devs today ever because the pool of devs itself is growing and becoming more accessible)
Sure, having MS Word doesn't make you a novelist, but Wordpress + plug-ins can let you make your own pretty high-quality news site with very little technical knowledge - that's real improvement.
I'd say to just give it time.
My company is doing this to another set of engineers in the mechanical / manufacturing space, so I hear these types of complaints all the time.
Most Wordpress themes are highly inefficient in regards to load time and bandwidth. There are some great plugins but most are sub par quality in terms of performance and security. All large scale Wordpress deployments are tuned either by in-house engineering staff or http://vip.wordpress.com/
Sure, having MS Word doesn't make you a novelist, but Wordpress + plug-ins can let you make your own pretty high-quality news site with very little technical knowledge - that's real improvement.
I'd say to just give it time.
My company is doing this to another set of engineers in the mechanical / manufacturing space, so I hear these types of complaints all the time.