A simple counter example would be that using Open Source software I could put together a Customer Relationship management solution with little to no Development. The time taken to understand the actual need and to test that the solution works correctly and answers that need completely would still be fairly significant. There are similar examples in many areas.

I'd agree that much of the development tool advancement has gone into doing things that wouldn't be done before. There are, however, cases of reuse and tool improvements that improve productivity for deliver systems that could have been produced previously as well.