Herman, before balanced line occurred, you had to scream at the top of your lungs to make a call across the state. The fact of the matter is balanced line was a transformation because there was less information loss. Historically you may find it uninteresting, but the implication for the quality of the sound in your recordings was profound.
The idea the SE is simpler is a common misconception. At first blush, it appears that because balanced equipment has more parts, that the signal chain is more complex. In fact the signal often negotiates the same number of gain stages, sometimes less. For example, in an SET there are usually 3 stages of gain, sometimes two. In our amps, which are balanced, there is one. There are 3 stages of gain in our preamps, which includes the low output MC input. Most SE preamps have more stages than that.
Its not better because the pros use it, the pros use it because it works better. The balanced line system was designed with the specific intention of eliminating cable differences and interactions. The benefit is that you can use a cheap cable to the same effect as a really expensive cable- effectively eliminating a cost in your system. That's not something you can say about SE cables!