jQuery is an 86kB static resource that almost certainly already exists in the browser's cache. You can choose to use it, or not, but you can't get stop it from being there!
So I'm unsure what kind of complexity you're adding by using it. Mental? Spiritual? Metaphysical?
And the whole point of TFA is that this is not the case. You can argue that it is, but not without getting into specifics.
Merely asking how can 2 things be simpler/smaller/better than 1 thing without taking into account what those 3 things are, makes absolutely no sense.