Okay, let's take apart a simple example:

You want to drive from Point A to Point B for a meeting, and you don't know how to get there.

Here's the integrated, Tolkein version (one app to rule them all and in the interface bind them): You open one application, let's call it Google.com, and you plug in your destination. It offers you a map of the location. In the same application, you input your origin point, and it gives you turn-by-turn directions. If it's on your smart phone, it will also tell you where you are now, and you can get restaurants along the way if you decide you want that (so you can eat before you get there), and motels along the way and at the destination if you need that. One app. All in one place. (Android's Sherpa app will do almost all of that all in one place too.)

Here's the one-app-per-piece version: You pull up the destination on a map application and it shows you the street map of the location. You use another app to get turn-by-turn directions. You then have to plug those into a GPS app to get where you are now vs where you need to be next. Then you pull up yet another to work out restaurants and motels along the way and at the destination. For each app, you have to learn and use a different interface that follows different design philosophies.

May sound silly, but in the late 90s, I got a CD-based database of street addresses. Could look up just about any address in the US and get a map of the location. Definitely didn't do turn-by-turn. But another application I had at that time could do turn-by-turn, but only to intersections, not to addresses. Neither could look up restaurants or motels, but online yellow pages could do that by radius around an address or intersection. And GPS at that time was pretty much "here you are", without the ability to tell you where to go next or anything like that. That's 10 years ago, and it's almost exactly what I'm describing.

Why don't those databases and applications get used any more (some of them don't even exist any more)? Because they weren't all-in-one, one-stop-shops. They weren't convenient to use compared to Google.com (or MapQuest or Bing or whatever else is in use these days).

I like integrated solutions. I also shop for books on Amazon, instead of at specialty bookstores (do those even exist any more?). I shop at Target instead of specialty shops. I shop at a grocery store, and don't go to a butcher, then a bakery, then a greengrocer, etc.

Do I need to make more decisions or less, do I have more or less options, if I shop at Target, or if I go to a video store, then a music store, then a hardware store, then an electronics store, then a clothing store, then a shoe store, then a basic grocery store, then an appliances store, then an office supplies store, et al, ad infinitum? Of course I have less options at Target. I have far fewer decisions to make. And if I shopped around, I'd probably get better goods at a better price on average. On the other hand, I'd spend more on gas, I'd have to learn my way around a dozen stores (or more), I'd have to hang onto more receipts and organize them more carefully, I'd have to pay attention to more data on sales and specials and product availability.

I pay the price of convenience. But I also get to take advantage of it. I only have to learn my way around one store. I only need one set of coupons. I keep one receipt. I then spend all the time freed up that way on other things.

That's the way I see it. Integration makes me more efficient, at a certain cost.

As already mentioned, in some areas, I prefer specialized tools, others I prefer integrated tools. I don't use a Swiss Army knife. I do use Management Studio. Different situations, different costs, different benefits. So I have options, and I make decisions.