Layers of protection - too much instrumentation?

I just returned from a state of the art refinery. My thoughts went back 30 years ago when I was shift in charge of an ammonia plant. There was no DCS system but pneumatic controllers mounted on a control room panel. The complete plant had a total of about 50 hard wired alarms mounted on the panel.We ran the plant safely and successfully! Today, we have the DCS system with numerous alarms and now there are alarm suppression software!Are we complicating things too much?