Someone wrote:
Everything else is too complex for authors anyway.
Clearly people want features in the software that the developers are too busy or unmotivated to implement. The barrier to becoming a Mediawiki developer is high, but the barrier to creating a conditional template is not. Authors/editors/endusers *don't need* to edit the complex templates; they need to edit the articles, which are becoming more and more daunting the more features are added to the syntax. If the intermediately-skilled programmers can make editing simpler and easier for the end users, isn't that a good thing?
Templates that do some calculations, recursion and other stuff won't be easier to the end users. *Conditional* templates are useful but templates that do some magic scripting are not needed *that* much to impose all the disatvantages.
Of course, the best solution would be to implement infoboxes and the like directly in the Mediawiki software, in a way that doesn't require end users to code anything. But until that happens, people are going to use as many shortcuts as they can to make it easy on newcomers.
That's fine.
What the **** is that? We don't need geek-features but a simple solution.
(warning: obscene code alert).
Stop being so hostile to people trying to improve the Wikipedia.
Sorry for my language.
Greetings, Jakob