Ah, another opportunity to wax philosophic....

I agree with the statement that comparisons aren't useful -- but for different reasons. Consider:
How did we arrive at modern, well, anything? Complex software systems are built upon simpler software systems. But they're also nearly useless without complex hardware systems to run them on. Complex hardware systems, in turn, are built upon simpler hardware systems. And those hardware systems are built upon complex industrial processes, which are built upon simpler, and so on and so forth -- we are dozens of generations in at this point, the list goes on.
It is not
meaningful to speak of the development of one technology in isolation, because it depends implicitly upon every other supporting technology that is at a similar level of development. The whole reason we have this complexity today, is because we had a similar increase in complexity in the previous generation, and so on.
A more concrete example that motivates this line of thought, is the thought experiment of the time travelling technologist -- if you were transported back 100, 1000, 10,000 years, whatever; even given a robust device to access current knowledge upon, not relying on your memory alone -- what might you be able to accomplish?
A typical answer seems to be ~roughly~ 18th century development, but on a much smaller scale, and only after many decades of concerted effort; and assuming adequate patronage from whatever political power you happen to be working under, and assuming no death from the great many natural causes that were typical of the time.
I don't think it's reasonable to compare complexity, when the design of a given, exact item
is impossible without some chain of prerequisites. For two items at the same depth, their complexity can be considered equivalent, or perhaps quibbled over in terms of modest degrees of complexity, which might be measured in some agreeable method, like minimal person-hours, or project time or budget, to take that existing technology (previous designs, theory, SDKs, etc.) and make the finished item. Whereas things that exist on different technology nodes, are intrinsically ordered.
So, that laid out, I think there are some refinements that can be made:
- We might make something with a given technology node, but it doesn't need to be made that way. Many things can be made, across many nodes, that are functionally equivalent. An audio amplifier can be made with ICs, transistors, vacuum tubes, or indeed, carbon granules. We've made a stopwatch (as such) in pure mechanics, discrete transistors, integrated circuits, and software on still-more-advanced integrated circuits; are they all equivalent? (In other words, should we relax the requirement that we consider the technology required to create an exact particular item, but something that is, in some useful ways, equivalent?)
- There is a cost-scale tradeoff inherent in economics. Consider the mainframe computer of the 1950s, which might've cost as much as a small factory; are they therefore equivalent in some sense? Or compare the minicomputer of the 1970s to the personal computer of the 1980s or 90s: they might have equivalent performance, but one cost exponentially more than the other; does that make one or the other more advanced?
- We do have to be mindful of the minimum investment criteria. It's always possible to make something cost
more, so of course we need to avoid cases that ran absurdly over budget, under their performance target, were affected by corrupting influences, etc. They're not more complicated just because of that. Conversely -- we might argue that such influences are inseparably part of the game, and we should use a broader scope. After all, if the locals object to construction of a new hi-tech factory, surely part of that technical node includes either addressing their concerns, or convincing them it's beneficial? Technology isn't just physical objects, it's our entire society top to bottom, thoughts included!
Overall I think the idea of technology nodes, or generations, is a useful one, but I'm not sure that there can exist a simple, convincing method to compare things of greatly varying complexity as well as technology. Well, that's just it -- I've enumerated several axes with which we might measure a thing. It's just trying to order multidimensional vectors -- you can create
a definition, but there can be no unique ordering of them.
Tim