Sandy wrote...
Dropping a rock on your foot is a simple process, whereas derusting a
rusty article is a complex process with many decisions to make.

Analogies aside, de-rusting a rusty article is not really a very complex
process, nor are there "many" decisions to make, at least not in my
understanding of "complex" and "many." Hyperbole, perhaps?

Yep. Close, but not my reading. His context was a complaint that this
discussion was irrelevant to this forum, and because he was not a
chemist, and couldn't follow it, it should not be discussed here.

You must have misread, then. Alexy nailed it:

"That he is not a chemist, and that most woodworkers are not
chemists, and are probably more interested in whether it works than
how it works."

Additionally, Charlie's suggestion was that the discussion had drifted
far enough afield to warrant an "OT" in the subject line, not that it
shouldn't be discussed. Your "reading" goes a good bit beyond hyperbole;
it teeters precipitously toward mischaracterization.

Jim