This reminds me of several of the survival discussions I've had with my dad. Why do all kitchen knives look the same? Everywhere you go, every brand. You don't see much more then a few superficial differences in blade designs. With the exception of course of gee whiz miracle knives. Kitchen knives designs are some of the best adapted on the planet because they've been used every single day for thousands of years.

People's brains are pretty similar. Our programing is pretty well adapted for survival. We have several layers of how we look at objects we find. Superficially, we see what things look like or what we're told they look like. At the most intense, we look at how things actually work, figuring out the physics behind it. The first strategy works because its fast and we can move on to other steps much faster. But when it fails the physical system will always give you far more information. A survival based example might be a suit coat. At first analysis you might thing, dress clothing isn't good for survival. On final analysis you might say, its wool, it has pockets I can put my hands in, it keeps me comfortable in a 60 degree air conditioned office, it would make a good layer of clothing. In everyday life, the difference might save you some frustration and money, but the physical analysis will always be better for buying equipment. In a survival situation, you have to chose the strategy that fits the problem. Too much time spent analyzing won't give you enough time to react; not enough may lead you to a potentially fatal decision.

This turned into a much longer post then I had planned.