Boring but Practical

"Tim-Tom: We leave the gas on... They go in their sleep, all quiet-like -- Kevin: Aw, I wanted to hear 'em scream! Tim-Tom: It's not as much fun, but it will look more like an accident."

- The Venture Brothers

Everyone loves flashy magic, BFGs, and big, thundering tanks. However, the more interesting something is, the more likely it falls victim to the rule of Awesome but Impractical: You can't use it often enough, it costs too much, or it just takes too much effort to get it. You could even have Cool but Inefficient, where it just looks awesome, but that is about it.

Therefore, we have things that are much more "boring" and normal, but these things often contribute more to your success in the long term than the visually more impressive things.

General examples:
 * Healers in MMORPGs are often this. Fiery doom or big swords are a lot cooler, but you try getting anywhere in a dungeon without a dedicated healer in your group. (However, a lot of video games try to circumvent this by giving healing spells effects just as spectacular as their offensive counterparts, such as big shining lights, summoning gods, or massive plant growth.)
 * Same for medics in FPS games that have them. In addition, ammo limitations often make normal guns more useful than sniper rifles or the BFG, or other restrictions on those weapons may render them impractical.
 * ... and, working backwards through history, healers in almost any pencil-and-paper roleplaying game.
 * Similarly, weapon loadouts that don't require much ammunition or allow you put a ton of ammunition on your vehicle in things like Humongous Mecha combat sims. The bigger guns tend to be unable to stock much ammo and take up more space, besides.
 * Normal attacks in RPGs. Special moves and magic are a lot more flashy, but they are usually restricted by something or other (Mana, Limit Break, etc). And some spells might not even work when you really need them.
 * In platformers, Goomba Stomp or basic moves, as opposed to the things you can do with powerups. Vital since the said powerups aren't always available, and if you lose yours mid-level, what then?
 * In strategy games, the basic combat unit is usually more efficient than the larger (and cooler looking) counterparts. Tournament players will often make heavy use of rather basic units in general. Any type of rush depends on this trope.
 * Again, in strategy games, Worker Units. These guys have little or no combat capability and present easy targets for your enemies, but without them, you have no economy, and without an economy, you have no army.
 * In Card Games, simple and resource cheap cards often reign supreme, with efficiency being more important than raw power.
 * Many action and brawler games with unlockable movesets usually fall prey to this. Players are so accustomed to the initial attacks that most new moves are too foreign to properly use or experiment with.
 * This is often particularly true when button combos are required. By the time the new moveset is unlocked, the enemies are too powerful to take lightly by practicing your new attack on, and your own damage output is high enough that failing to activate your new ability will simply kill a mook outright with a mere jab.
 * The Jack of All Stats can often be this trope; they may lack the coolest, or strongest moves, but are fairly good at most attributes, and lack the glaring weaknesses of other character types.

May border on Game Breaker. Compare Awesome Yet Practical. Contrast Awesome but Impractical, Cool but Inefficient.

Video Game Examples:

 * Action Games
 * Beat'Em Ups
 * Driving Games
 * Fighting Games
 * First-Person Shooters
 * Hack and Slash
 * Mecha Games
 * MMORPGs
 * Platform Games
 * Puzzle Games
 * Real Time Strategy
 * Rhythm Games
 * Roguelike
 * Role-Playing Games


 * Shoot'Em Ups


 * Simulation Games


 * Stealth Based Games


 * Third-Person Shooters

Turn-Based Strategy

 * In Final Fantasy Tactics, you have the option to equip yourself with impressive summons and fantasic magic spells. But nothing is as damaging as making Ramza a monk and just punching your way to victory.
 * The ninja works well here too, because of its ability to dual wield. Or you could learn the dual wield ability and give it to the monk, at which point they start using their quite painful punch attack twice.
 * The second punch has the added bonus of bypassing the game breaking defensive ability of Shirahadori/Blade Grasp.
 * The Knight and the Archer are the first two warrior classes you unlock and have relatively mundane abilities of breaking equipment and charging attacks respectively, which pale to the flashy things that geomancers, and ninjas can do. However, equip an archer with Knight powers and concentration and you have a unit who can reliably strip the enemy of his equipment from a distance.
 * At least in A2, a Time Mage is at top efficiency when it spends most of its turns using Haste, its most basic spell.
 * The Worms series is famous for its more outlandish weapons, but the simplicity and utility value of weapons like the Shotgun (fires in a straight line, two shots, a maximum of 25 damage each with a correspondingly small blast radius) frequently outweighs this. Particularly given that big, flashy weapons have a higher chance of backfiring or at least damaging the shooter. The Bazooka and Grenade also demonstrate this, but nothing fits the description of Boring but Practical quite like the Shotgun.
 * Strangely enough, A Space Oddity turns this into Awesome and Practical by having the Shotgun as the weapon in the final minigame, where you take down UFOs with it, because the Worms have decided that their high-tech weaponry isn't working, and they decide to get out "the trusty shotgun".
 * The Shotgun is practical because it actually subverts many conventions of the game, which is the "you cant move after you shoot" and "You can only hit one target per turn". With a Shotgun, and aiming skills, you can either bunge two Worms in one turn, push two onto landmines, blow up two Oil canisters, knock two opposing worms into very bad positions, do any combination of those, or just one and go back into hiding. The tactical flexibility of the Shotgun is what makes it practical.
 * The Fire Punch and the Dragonball. They're melee attacks that inflict a consistent 25 and 30 damage, respectively—keyword being consistent (contrast other weapons, which inflict varying damage), so hitting an opponent that has less health than either weapon will take off is a guaranteed kill. Alternatively, you can use these attacks to knock your opponent into a mine, or better yet, off the screen or into the water.
 * In the Fire Emblem series, due to the high cost and limited usage of stronger weapons, the basic iron and steel weapons remain an important part of your arsenal throughout the entire game thanks to their low cost and better durability.
 * In the Nintendo Wars series, basic Infantry spam backed up by some artillery is extremely viable in most installments. And the light tank is much more cost-effective against other units than its bigger brethren, and is faster than them to boot. There's a reason one of the most widespread tactics is known as the Mech Rush.
 * Game Boy Wars 3, however, avoids this problem. It's more susceptible to car spam, but at least cars are far more fun due to being fast in return for infantry class defense. A list of reasons:
 * Materials. This hinders spams in general because the price gaps are considerably smaller.
 * One-Hit Kill potential against foot soldiers. The third cheapest unit out of about 50 units (granted, some are stronger or more specialized rehashes), can kill the basic Infantry on Roads. That says a lot, especially when the AA Tank can One-Hit Kill the Mech on a Forest.
 * Inexpensive cars up against the infantry's low movement. Enough said, explained above if necessary.
 * Cars also share the same armor class as infantry. This does make them susceptible to units that also deal heavy damage to them, but weapons like the Mech's bazooka are rendered useless against the aforementioned 3rd cheapest unit, which happens to be such.
 * Most units have a machine gun anyway. Convoys, which are used to transport infantry and can be used as meatwalls for sponging attacks from spammed units, also can smack infantry, even if they can expect some punishment in return.
 * Indirects, the main crutch of infantry spamming's overpoweredness in the series, are generally expensive. This is to stop them from abusing their ability to move and fire on the same turn that they have here, so that they have to be saved up for, and building one has them possibly put on the bad end of an Anti-Tank shot from any number of units, particularly bad for them when the Humvee and IFV can One-Hit Kill them on Roads and a Convoy-delivered Mech still doesn't need to use adjacent liberties to attack them.
 * Scratch that. Even Game Boy Wars 3 isn't exactly immune. Watch as a Mech flood staves off a ridiculous property advantage for a while before indirects come in and start obliterating them.
 * In the Original Generation Super Robot Wars games, one of the best weapons to upgrade is the M95 Machine Gun, a basic weapon that a dozen or so of the Real Robot units get. Why? A few reasons: One, it's the cheapest weapon to upgrade in the game, this means it can be fully upgraded at a much lower cost than some of the pricier, flashier attacks. Fully upgraded its base damage is 4950, which while isn't as powerful as many of the super strong attacks, is still a very respectable amount of damage. Plus, fully upgraded weapons have a higher Critical Hit rate, not only that but they have 15 shots in them each, and can be used after moving. Throw these on the Real Robot Mauve Shirt characters and have them clear the way with ease.
 * Similarly, the "Steel Knife" is the blandest, boringest, but most practical of the melee weapons to upgrade. It's the cheapest for what you get, works well in any terrain, AND has some impressive to-hit and crit modifiers.
 * If you're trying to go for a rush strategy in Lords Of The Realm 2, an army of around 50 peasants (50 being the minimum army size) makes for an effective battle of attrition starter, as armies can destroy fields that take several turns to reclaim. If you want something more armed, Macemen are great as they are the second cheapest unit to make and are the second fastest. They can also hold their own pretty well.
 * Game mechanics cause this to be very prevalent in Tactics Ogre. From beginning to end, one of the most effective units in the game is the humble archer, a low level female unit with very high dexterity (ranged attack), the ability to traverse watery terrain, and amazingly high avoidance. Ranged attacks are at a great advantage because any time a melee class attacks an enemy, the enemy will be allowed a counterattack while ranged units never get counterattacked, resulting in far less damage taken by ranged units. Not only that but the game extends bow range according to terrain height so that archers can easily achieve the longest range if they get into a high spot (far longer range than mages, at least until you get the gamebreaking spells at the end of the game), shoot over obstacles, and their avoidance means they will even dodge a great many attacks against them! Even when an army of angels, dragons, hydras, golems, and terror knights are at your disposal end game, many players opt for a full third of their attack party being archers.
 * In Sword of the Stars, the simple Assault Shuttle buildable from the very start will remain your primary option of anti-planet attack for a long while. Bio-missiles can be vaccinated against, the really large anti-planet weapons like the Siege Driver are Awesome but Impractical because they are too far up the tech tree to be available quickly and the majority of ship-to-ship weapons aren't too good for bombardment, leaving the Assault Shuttle as the most reliable option - at least until Argos Naval Yard introduced the Advanced Assault Shuttle.
 * The Armor Piercing Mass Driver is a strong example. A medium-mount weapon that only requires you to research two technologies, and can be a major part of the armament of an endgame dreadnought. It needs a few upgrades to keep up with the flashy energy weapons, but the same exact turret can be the backbone of your arsenal throughout most of the game. It doesn't have any of the specialties of various energy weapons, or the sheer damage and impact of non-piercing drivers, but it's reliable against most targets and easy to get.
 * Medium mounts in general might qualify. Except for missiles, they're generally blander than others. Most medium mounts simply deliver moderate damage at moderate range. Small mounts have a monopoly on point defense and tend to have long-range precision weapons. Heavy mounts range from being like the medium version, but all-around better, to a number of more exotic possibilities. Exotic special mounts are often the entire point of a dedicated ship. Nonetheless, many ships carry enough medium mounts that they comprise a substantial fraction of the ship's damage output.
 * Out of the 6 species, this is a theme for the Tarkas. Their hyperdrive is the simplest FTL method to use (Other species methods can be faster, but require certain conditions to do so), they don't get any unusual bonuses or mechanics other than cheaper cruisers, and their ship designs emphasize the "basic" sections rather than sections associated with special weapons, in addition to general toughness.
 * In Vanguard Bandits, there's the Turbulence attack. It's easy to get stat-wise and time-wise, its attack costs are very reasonable and it has a large range. Used wisely, it can completely incapacitate anyone, even the Final Boss. But it does embarrassingly low amounts of damage even with high attack and is one of the dullest looking moves in the game.
 * Sensei's CO Powers in Advance Wars 2 and Dual Strike, which airdrops infantry (or Mech in the case of the SCOP) units with 9 HP on all cities under your control. They're the most basic units in the game, but depending on how many cities you have, it can easily turn into a widescale Zerg Rush.
 * In Stars!, the Colony Ship hull. It's small, very fragile and cannot mount anything upgradeable but engines. Given a fuel pod (both zero Tech Level) instead of colonization module, it has the greatest fuel/mass ratio and engines/mass ratio among the cargo-carrying hulls. Which gives it the best cost efficiency at improving fleets' range (until and unless a fleet can generate fuel) and the longest bursts of excessive speed. Both advantages are desirable in a train for interceptor fleets (carry fuel for warships, after a battle collect salvage, split as few as needed and send to your colony, send back refuelled replacement from a base ) and the latter is what a ship needs to catch fast incoming mineral packets that in early game are very lethal, but small . Early on, there's also not much cargo anyway and short detection range leaves little time to intercept packets or ships. The result: usually it's a good idea to mass produce ships on the weakest and least functional of common hulls, from the start and at least until development of fuel-producing ships and/or economical fast engines.

Wide Open Sandbox

 * Prototype has the Musclemass power. No fancy deviation from unarmed combat... except maybe boosting those attacks' damage outputs to endgame-useful levels once maxed out. Even the Awesome Yet Practical Cannonball move benefits from this, yet overuse will make it fit this trope eventually, since it's one of the more surefire(read: attacking while dodging attacks) ways to quickly down anything amidst the chaos except the game's Dragon.
 * Cobblestone in Minecraft. Not very fancy, but it's durable, incredibly common (all your stone automatically turns into it upon mining), and very important when it comes to crafting.
 * Farming crops. Farming isn't the most exciting thing to do in Minecraft (as opposed to going around slaughtering pigs and cows), but with a reasonably-sized, well-lit, and hydrated farm, you can easily produce enough wheat to constantly feed yourself with bread, at a fast enough rate that you'll never starve to death again (unless you by chance allow Creepers or Endermen to wreck your farm).
 * In a game loaded with air strikes, tanks and helicopters, the weapon that will see the most use in the Mercenaries series will be some variant of the basic Assault Rifle and RPG combo. When you crash the helicopter, blow up the tank or miss the airstrike, whatever you need dead (including a building) will eventually fall with this comparatively humble combo applied in the correct manner. The best part is that you will trip over ammunition for them, so you don't need to worry about cash or fuel costs.
 * The sledgehammer and mining charges are easily the most versatile weapons in Red Faction: Guerrilla. The sledgehammer can tear through almost any structure in a couple swings, and mining charges provide great building destruction, crowd control, traps, and vehicle control. They're also the first two weapons you have access too, and the sledge is a permanent fixture in your equipment.
 * The 3D Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row series have plenty of high-powered machine guns, shotguns, rocket launchers, and gatling guns. More often than not, the standard pistols can carry you through most of the game thanks to their plentiful ammo and excellent accuracy.

Anime and Manga
"Gavrill: (to a gonky boy) You wanna be popular with the girls? Get plastic surgery and transfer to another school. Also, practice talking to people a lot. And if you need to, lie to women or buy them off with money."
 * Although Naruto makes extensive use of all two of his advanced jutsu, he's ended most of his fights in the entire series thus far by just punching the guy.
 * Then again, in some cases, this was necessitated by him using up most of his chakra using his advanced jutsu.
 * There's also Shikamaru's shadow manipulation jutsu, which never changes its basic function throughout the series (ensnaring and controlling people with their shadows), yet Shikamaru uses it efficiently and in a variety of methods. Overall, he's definitely a boring fighter, but far more practical at getting the job done than many others.
 * Bleach has Ichigo, who in a world where shikais and bankais give elemental abilities to weapons, turn them into entirely different weapons, summon giant poison baby familiars, win most fights by simply slashing and shooting blasts with varying levels of power.
 * Kenpachi Zaraki is a beast who relies on brute force but his ace in the hole is to hold his sword with two hands and swing nromally.
 * Hanataro's zanpakuto is pretty much useless for fighting, but its ability to heal any wound it "slashes" makes it the perfect medical device. Course, this pretty much summarizes Hanataro's boring yet greatly underappreciated character; not a fighter in any form of the word, yet one of the best healers in the Gotei 13. For example, he was the one who brought Renji back to full form after the latter was beaten and nearly torn apart by Byakuya several times over.
 * But if the gauge on the side is full, it turns into Awesome but Impractical because now the next one slash takes all the injuries the sword absorbed and launches them out into a single attack.
 * The Taiyouken/Solar Flare technique from Dragon Ball. It's probably the most generally useful technique in the entire story, even if It Only Works Once, and the Z-Fighters were more pragmatic a whole lot of story arcs would be about half the length.
 * Gets a lampshade in Dragon Ball Abridged when Gohan asks if Krillin thought to just use the Kienzan/Destructo Disc to kill Frieza when he was blinded (he didn't).
 * Most Holyland fights end after the second or third exchange and a character (Izawa) constantly reminds everyone else that basic movements are the best option, although the fact that he one-hit KO's most of his opponents can be considered Awesome Yet Practical; he claims that he doesn't do it because it looks cool, but because it's the safest way to go. Also, there's a fight that Yuu wins by using only left straights because his opponent was bigger, stronger and had longer reach than him, so using anything but a left straight would be too dangerous. A character even complains about this because he was expecting more from the fight.
 * Soul Eater: Black Star and Mifune deciding to finish their final fight on even ground as swordsmen (just ordinary katana, or as close as Tsubaki could make herself) makes for one of the best and worst moments in the series.
 * The advice of Gavrill from Franken Fran for the school students is a combination of this, Brutal Honesty, and Family-Unfriendly Aesop.


 * Fate/stay night, where generally massively destructive attacks rule supreme, and where the main heroine has a Sword Beam that can wipe out a city you have Assassin and (to a lesser degree) Lancer. Both their Noble Phantasms (read weapons and special attacks) do one thing: attack one, and only one person infront of them. Nothing else, not even environmental damage. Not very much compared to Saber's speed-of-light Wave Motion Sword, Archer's Field of Blades, Rider's 430kmph Pegasus, Caster's over-the-top Beam Spam, Berserker's   and   HOWEVER, Lancer's Noble Phantasm uses so little mana that he can fire it off 7 times in quick succession without draining himself completely, as opposed to most of the other attacks mentioned above. And though his attack isn't flashy or earth shattering, it will probably kill you in one shot. And Assassin's attack doesn't even use mana at all. It's just a very good sword technique that's undodgeable and instakill if he manages to set it up. It's not flashy, nor is it No Kill Like Overkill, and it's not even really magical, but it damn well works.
 * In theory.
 * Similarly, Magi can have an incredible repertoire too. Element Manipulation, Magic Infused Jewelry, Curses, Bounded Fields, Projection and, in rare cases, a Reality Marble. Nonetheless, in the end, the most effective one is a simple Reinforcement Spell combined with close combat skills. As demonstrated by.

Film
"Blue Raja: (incredulous) There's no theme at all here!"
 * Mystery Men. Early on, some of the heroes try to infiltrate a mansion with an array of gimmicky but mostly useless powers. When they come across a group of disco-themed villains guarding the mansion, they ridicule them for bringing pistols, junction pipes, switchblades, etc to the fight which have nothing to do with disco. A Curb Stomp Battle ensues.


 * In the Star Wars universe, the YT-1300 Corelian Light Freighter when compared to an X-Wing or Star Destroyer is one of the most boring ships in the universe. It is, however, one of the most popular. Reliable, durable, easy to modify and repair in an emergency, the YT-1300 is a favorite of smugglers throughout the galaxy. The most famous example, of course, is the Millennium Falcon, the best example of what a resourceful spacer can do with the design.
 * The X-Wing also falls into this in the Extended Universe, where, before the production of the XJ and Stealth X series, it was outmatched entirely by next generation fighters like its distant cousin the E-Wing and the Empire's pure hotrod of a starship, the TIE Defender. Yet even all the way to the Yuuzhan Vong War, the X-Wing remained perhaps the most effective fighter in the Rebel Alliance/New Republic/Galactic Alliance's arsenal, thanks to its near perfectly balanced performance and capabilities, as well as the ease at which pilots (namely Rogue Squadron) can use them. Sure, a few good pilots in TIE Defenders are a considerable threat, but an X-Wing with Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles, Tycho Celchu or Corran Horn at the controls is guaranteed to be the superior force (no pun intended).
 * And let us not forget Princess Leia.
 * The Hunger Games has both the trainers and Haymitch stress that smart tributes learn wilderness survival and forgo getting glamorous weapons at the start before bolting for high ground and water to give themselves a good chance of survival.

Literature
""Slugthrowers. I hate 'em. But they're easy to maintain. Day or two in the jungle and your blaster'll never fire again. A good slug rifle, keep 'em wiped and oiled, they last forever. The guerrillas have pretty good luck with them, even though they take a lot of practice — slugs are ballistic, y'know? You have to plot the trajectory in your head.""
 * In World War Z, once the nations of the world decide to go on the offensive after the Zombie Apocalypse, they get rid of their flashy tanks, jet fighters, machine guns, body armor and indeed most modern tactics. Instead, the average infantryman carries a highly-accurate, semi-automatic rifle that is designed for pulling off headshots quickly and consistently, they form up in lines and open fire. These old-school tactics kill zombies better than anything. Do Not ask how realistic this is.
 * Additionally, the melee weapon of choice in later chapters is the Lobotomizer, "Lobo" for short. It's described in-book as a cross between a shovel and a medieval battle axe. Dig a trench, bury a fallen comrade, decapitate a zombie.
 * The French novel Malevil features the eponymous castle. Built by the invading English during the Hundred Years' War it was built solely for function and has little aesthetic value unlike its opposing neighbor, the French castle Les Rouzies.
 * Discworld uses this trope to lampshade the trope where MacGuffins which are swords are most often shiny and cool looking (as described: shiny that lights up with a ting!) At the end of the book in which Carrot joins the Watch, Vimes ponders, perhaps the sword of the last king of Ankh-Morpork isn't shiny and lights up with a ting!. Perhaps the sword of the king is a boring old sword that was simply very, very, very sharp.
 * In the same vein, Cohen and the Silver Hoard (a group of octogenarian barbarian heroes) carry notably notched and beat-up swords that are STILL sharp enough to cut a die in half in mid-air. (At one point, Cohen internally reflects that a simple, plain non-magical sword in the hands of a truly brave man will cut through a magical sword like suet. He's looking at Carrot's sword while thinking this, which has previously been determined to not merely not be enchanted, but to have no magic in it AT ALL, which is quite a feat on the Discworld.)
 * In The Dresden Files the "Eebs" work like this. When trying to kill an extremely powerful wizard they shoot at him with a silenced pistol from inside a car. When it fails they just drive away. They hire a local killer to attack him. They chuck a firebomb into his building while he sleeps. All things that don't take a scrap of supernatural power to achieve. They are also the Red Court's two most successful assassins. The reasons being that while these individual attempts don't have a particularly high success rate, they also expose them to barely any risk and take little effort, and sooner or later they get lucky.
 * Parts of the Star Wars Expanded Universe have "slugthrower" weaponry - these are firearms, guns that fire bullets. This is a 'verse where blasters are fairly easy to come by. But Luke Skywalker trained with slugthrowers as a kid on Tatooine, and a character in Shatterpoint has this to say about them.


 * That and they're the perfect Jedi-killing weapon: a blaster bolt can be easily deflected back with a lightsaber, but if a Jedi intercepts a slugthrower round it will only melt it without deflecting or slowing it, resulting in the defending Jedi getting hit with a less letal but much more painful slug. And making him defenseless due the pain, if the bullet didn't kill him outright.
 * There's a short story by Arthur C. Clarke called Superiority about a space empire that keeps inventing one incredible superweapon after another—until they get overrun by their enemies who directed their resources towards making huge numbers of plain, oldfashioned torpedoes while the other side was busy updating their ships.

Live Action TV
Believe it or not, Television in general has some great examples.
 * The CBS logo, introduced in 1951, was based on the designs seen on barn walls. It was a simple round shape with an eye-like depiction in the center. When William Golden began work on another logo about a year later, his boss Frank Stanton worked like crazy to have the logo plastered on anything and everything he could think of. Stanton's reasoning? "Just when you're beginning to be bored by what you've done is when it's beginning to be noticed by your audience." More than six decades later, it remains one of the media world's most recognizable symbols.
 * The core of the (American) ABC network logo has remained practically unchanged for five decades. Like the CBS eye, it is a highly recognized corporate symbol.

Reality Television

 * Survivor has a strategy known as "Pagonging" (named after the Pagong tribe, who fell victim to it way back in the first season). Partway through the game, the two teams merge and it becomes every man for himself - but the players hold on to the "us vs. them" mentality, and if all goes well the larger team will stay together and eliminate the smaller team one by one, only turning on each other when (1) they've run out of targets or (2) the last member of that other tribe has won immunity. It's very efficient for those members of the larger team, but predictable and not nearly as fun for the home audience to watch as a chaotic Gambit Pileup.
 * Then there's the strategy of being The Quiet One or Obfuscating Stupidity. Unless pretending to be stupid involves doing something that's funny, you won't get much screentime by staying out of harm's way. That being said, if you can convince the players in control that you're not a threat at all (Natalie White, anyone?), they'll take you to the end under the assumption that you're no trouble to beat.
 * In Hell's Kitchen season 3, one of the top performers was Julia, a Waffle House line cook from Atlanta. The professionally-trained chefs (especially those on her own team) tended to treat her like crap and denigrate her skills, but it turned out she had precisely the skill set Gordon Ramsay was looking for (including good teamwork, promptness with her cooking, and staying cool under pressure). So much so that when she was eliminated near the end, Gordon praised her potential and dedication and then paid for her to go to culinary school
 * In particular, one episode had a breakfast challenge; instead of asking the woman who does this every day of her life for help, the other women told her "go peel potatoes". When Gordon noticed, he ordered the women to let Julia cook; she quickly turned the sinking ship into an overwhelming victory.
 * One episode of Food Network's Celebrity Chef Cook-Off had as its Elimination Challenge... grilled cheese. Cheech Marin and Lou Diamond Philips made fancy sandwiches with unusual breads and extra bits thrown in, while Joey Fatone made a basic grilled cheese sandwich, the only embellishment being a smiley face made of sliced tomatoes and a pickle. However, Cheech's sandwich was greasy and LDP didn't melt the cheese, while Joey (who said he makes grilled cheese all the time for his kids) ended up winning immunity because his no-frills sandwich was perfectly made.
 * Plenty of episodes in both the U.K and U.S versions of Kitchen Nightmares had chefs making extremely flashy food that was especially difficult or time consuming to cook, or had managers decorate their restaurants with flashy but gaudy styles and using tacky gimmicks to draw in customers. Gordon has them change to fit this trope. Some of the best examples of the former and the later respectively are Rococo's and The Curry Lounge.
 * Go onto almost any message board for America's Next Top Model. You'll probably find no shortage of support for Nigel Barker or Jay Manuel (Mister Jay) while It's All About Me Tyra hardly gets any. Part of that comes from their dry delivery, which is almost always in plain simple English rather than the Tyraspeak she is ever so fond of. Hell, even with his silly accent imitations, the flamboyant J. Alexander (Miss Jay, also a fan favorite) can get his point across with next to no mumbo-jumbo.
 * In the American Big Brother, there's similar strategies to Survivor. However in this game, it's individual from the very start - so as a result, you want to make yourself appear to be much less of a threat that people won't target you. You want them directing their sights at someone else, not you. Thus, a fair amount of Obfuscating Stupidity is involved in making yourself appear much less of a threat than you actually are. Naturally this leads to a lot of sitting around and letting someone else strategize, so that they make themselves appear to be the threat, not you.

Sports

 * Hand-to-hand fighting.
 * Certainly martial arts styles like Tae Kwon Do and Capoeira seem very visually appealing, with all the fancy flips, cartwheels and jump kicks, but even these flashier ones usually cut the crap in serious situations.
 * In most competitive martial arts sparring, 95% of the points are scored with the most basic moves.
 * In Mixed Martial Arts, basics have dominated, and coaches will often chastise their fighter if they try to go crazy. Exotic submissions and acrobatic striking moves rarely work, though some fighters have developed reputations for the efficacy of their flashier moves.
 * Grappling and wrestling overall are often regarded as this trope in MMA fights. Fighters often manage to simply control their opponents for the duration of the fight en route to a safe decision victory than take a chance with more exciting offensive moves for a stoppage.
 * The neutral zone trap in hockey. Essentially, it's a very heavy defensive strategy that prevents the attacking team from getting close to the net by pinning them in the neutral zone with no way to get around the defense. Critics complain it is extremely boring to watch (neither team really gets a lot of scoring chances as a result,) but if done effectively it is very difficult to beat.
 * In baseball, the majority of runs are scored as a result of "boring" things like walks and singles. Home runs are great when they happen, but even the most prolific home run hitters can hit a home run only about once every thirteen plate appearances on average. Plus watching a baseball team play as a team, emphasizing practical base hits and competent fielding and generally playing baseball rather than playing prima donna is a pleasure in itself.
 * Walking in itself could be considered this. For most of baseball's history, no one paid much attention to the ability to draw walks, and batting average, which did not take walks into account, was by far the most widely-used statistic to measure offensive output. With the rise of sabremetrics, or objective statistical analysis, in the twenty-first century, the value of the base on balls has since come to be recognized, to the point where it's no longer an undervalued skill.
 * American Football: Big passes and fancy trick plays are crowd-pleasers. But teams can often get even more mileage out of quick passes to the center of the field. It's not difficult to get 5 or 6 yards minimum per pass this way, and if you have a good tight end or receiving tailback, or a wideout that runs a lot of short patterns to the middle, they can rack up yardage while the big-play players are given more coverage. A team who can get consistent gains on boring runs up the middle will quickly wear out the opposing defense, which will leave their opponent helpless to stop either their running or their passing attacks in the late stages of the game. This is why there were so many Super Bowl routs from the mid-'80s to '90s: the AFC teams, with their flashy passing attacks led by quarterbacks from the 1983 draft class and their light 3-4 defenses, were physically dominated by the power running games and smash-mouth defenses of NFC teams of the time.
 * In basketball, two of the most reliable sources of points are layups and free throws. Also, the shot clock was introduced largely to eliminate the viability of the "four corner offense", actually more of a defensive tactic which consisted mostly of passing the ball around without even trying to get a shot for as much as five minutes at a time.
 * Played straight (and later subverted) in Association Football, which suffered from an overdose of Boring but Practical heavy defensive tactics during the early 2000's.
 * Johan Cruijff's quip: "Football is simple, but the hardest thing there is, is to play simple football."
 * The catenaccio or counter-attacking family of tactics falls under a similar category. The aim is for the team to defend with as many as 10 men, whilst only one or two players remain in attacking positions, hoping to get to a loose ball and create an opportunity from it. Due to the difficulty of attacking a team that is defending with many players (especially when done well, like Inter in the 50s/60s) added to the lack of attacks created by a team using this technique, many pundits now call this "anti-football". It is however extremely effective in levelling chances between teams of different level, so most teams that expect to lose a game will play in this fashion.
 * In football, heavy defense tactics are meant to frustrate the opponent team by preventing it from scoring in any way possible. This goads the opponents into attacking your goal more desparately, while you wait for a "lucky break" for a surprise attack on their weakened defenses. At this point, the heavy-defenders then usually go into an even heavier defensive to protect this advantage in score, making it even less likely to see more goals later in the game. The result, for everyone but the diehard fans of the defensive team, is that the majority of the game is itself extremely frustrating and usually promises a very small final score (1-0 and such). The period culminated in the 2002 World Cup, where the German team made extremely effective use of this technique for the majority of the tournament, winning the first three elimination rounds at exactly 1-0 each. However, this was subverted when they lost the final to the Brazilians, against whom defensive tactics don't usually work.
 * Boring but Practical came back with Greece's performance two years later, at the UEFA Euro 2004, winning the whole tournament in the process.
 * Also, Chelsea beat the flashy and seemingly undefeatable Barcelona in the 2012 UEFA Champions League with this extreme defense (at times, 9 or 10 players would be next to the goal...).

Tabletop Games
"#69: There is more to wizardry than magic missile. Even if I can do 200 damage automatic with no save."
 * Among the mage spells in Dungeons and Dragons, "Magic Missile" is one of the first and most basic ones you have access to. Although the damage is deals is sub-par, it always hits. It ignores both damage and elemental resistances, ignores incorporeality and does not allow a saving throw to reduce or negate its effect. The only things that can stop Magic Missile are spell resistance/immunity (not common at low-mid levels), a specific spell (Shield) or a specific consumable item (Brooch of Shielding). But Wait! There's More! As you level up, it not just scales damage with your level, but does this via extra simultaneous attacks, allowing to target multiple foes at once. And as a 1st level spell, you'll always have plenty of spell slots available for it, and later it becomes prime material for metamagic feats. The utility of this spell is so high that Mr. Welch mentions this spell by name.


 * Up to and including AD&D 2 low-level wizards had very few spell slots, and thus rarely had anything showy in 1-level slots. An attack spell, even unerring magic missile, is but one attack with low damage. Feather Fall, Light, Spider Climb or Phantasmal Force all give advantages that can save the party. In 2e with certain sourcebooks it's often Cantrip spell: on 1 level it allows to spam minor effects - either utility (firefinger, tie/untie) or tricking the enemies (conjured Banana Peels, mild distractions, dusting the tracks) - for a hour. If one expects fighting, it's either Shield or Sleep.
 * For a 3rd Edition wizard, many of the most powerful spells are not flashy direct-damage spells like fireball or lightning bolt, but spells that weaken the enemy, like ray of enfeeblement or web, which can turn a potentially deadly fight into a cakewalk.
 * And for all the melee classes, Power Attack is probably the feat of choice and is a core book feat can be taken right off the bat for most melee builds. Take a few advanced feats to go with it (Leap Attack, Shock Trooper) and throw in a good solid martial weapon and it can become a Game Breaker. Beam emitter is simply too powerful for the task.
 * The 3rd Edition cleric lacks the finesse of the rogue, the combat prowess of the fighter, or the impressive offensive magic light show of the wizard. Furthermore, it is expected to fill the thankless, inglorious task of healing and supporting the party.
 * Keeping your allies alive so they can finish the fight is the epitome of Boring but Practical. The fighter may be thrilled when his Critical Hit downs the dragon, but if it weren't for the cleric healing him, the dragon would have mulched him by the second round. This has been the cleric's job since the class was first created, with 4th Edition changing it a bit.
 * With 3rd edition clerics, wizards, and druids, much of their usefulness stems from the variety of useful utilitarian spells, from endure elements, water breathing, and plane shift, to oddities like rope trick, which gives a party a safe place to rest.
 * This was the case in earlier editions as well. Many of the spells available to such classes were entirely practical, useful for dealing with quite mundane problems. Every spell mentioned above was in the Core Rulebook of earlier editions as well.
 * The most important magic items in 3.5 are the ones that increases your stats. They take precedence over anything else that uses the same slot. Also, items that does cool or unusual things are often priced too high to be useful by the time you can get them.
 * If you're buying magical items, which is certainly not the favoured method.
 * In 4th Edition, all classes have "at-will" powers (magic missile being one), which are all examples of this trope—they can be used as many times as desired, where the flashier, more powerful abilities can only be used occasionally. As such, boosting the power of these abilities is a boring but practical way to make your character stronger.
 * Also in 4th Ed, magic missile is one of the few wizard powers that count as a ranged basic attack, meaning it gets bonuses from a lot of equipment AND can be used for extra attacks granted by certain leader classes.
 * In Forgotten Realms, where alchemy is practiced (gnomes, drow and innovative human civilizations like Lantan or Ravens Bluff), alchemists make things like smokepowder and fancy poisons including ever-useful Knockout Gas. But mostly, Realmslore at every opportunity points out the common products with vast market: dyes, inks, perfumes, decorative alloys...
 * The armies of Warhammer 40000 offer loads of appealing units to select, be they super soldiers encased in powered armor that can punch holes in tanks and survive being stepped on by mecha, battlesuits unleashing volleys of plasma fire while darting in and out of cover, tanks the size of bunkers that can annihilate entire squads in a single shot, genetically-engineered warbeasts that spit fire and toss around enemy armor like toys, speed-crazed alien brutes on crude motorcycles loaded with guns, teleporting shock troops firing monofilament threads, and so forth. But at the end of the battle none of these units will matter unless you have some humble Troops choices, the rank-and-file of your army, to hold mission objectives.
 * However, the above-mentioned speed-crazed alien brutes can take motorcycles as troops choices simply by taking a cheap special character.
 * For that matter, the common Guardsman's lasrifle, so weak that it's nicknamed "flashlight", but reliable, low maintenance and has as much as 60 shots from a powerpack that can be recharged anywhere (even from sunlight). It's not a great weapon, but thousands of them can bring down an army of 'nids.
 * The bog-standard model of the Leman Russ Main Battle Tank, both in-'verse and on the tabletop. It lacks the flash of the more specialised models of the same chassis, and the sheer power of super-heavies like the Baneblade, but they're cheap, plentiful and can perform well (if not excel) in almost any role.
 * Indeed, for most armies in any of the Games Workshop big games (Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Lord of the Rings), it's generally a good idea to cross off the most expensive units in their force from attempts to build serious armies. The reason is fairly simple; any extremely powerful unit is going to take up a lot of the points an army gets, leaving the rest of the army weaker. It'll get blasted by canonballs, a hero killer, or tanks because it is such a big investment on your part, leaving your force crippled. Even if your opponent doesn't have a powerful answer to kill that behemoth, he maybe can tie it up so it doesn't damage anything important while the rest his army crushes your force. For example, one solution to facing a dragon in Lot R is to feed it a mook every turn; sure, the mook is pretty much doomed, but the dragon is likely impotent to do anything else and cost so many points the rest of your army can sweep the enemy with little trouble. Likewise, if a new player insists on a huge squad of assault terminators you can't kill, skating around them will mean that incredibly expensive unit does too little damage to justify its massive cost. Boring but practical wins cutthroat games.
 * In Magic: The Gathering, some of the best cards in the game have completely generic effects, but for cheap.
 * Sadly, the cards linked above are also banned from most tournament formats, possibly for exactly that same reason.
 * In the beginning, Magic tournaments were often dominated by big, flashy spells, things like dragons, angels, and demons. Then one player got the idea of using small, crappy creatures that most players ignored for a fast beatdown, with the idea being that a big, flashy spell is no good if the other guy is too dead to cast it. A few nearly one-sided tournaments later, the "weenie" archetype that we (Magic players) all know and love was born.
 * Cards don't get much simpler than Lightning Bolt, yet it's so good that it wasn't printed in a tournament legal set for 14 years. It only returned due to Power Creep, Power Seep, which is remarkably small considering the games enduring nature.
 * Yu-Gi-Oh!!'s metagame is faced with a similar situation. Finally summoned your almighty Dragon Master Knight? Or maybe Elemental Hero Divine Neos? Too bad, they're just as vulnerable to traps like Mirror Force as Kuriboh is. Unless you're summoning something that is immune or can shut down traps, it's usually much better to go with something simple, like Cyber Dragon, whose effect is simply: "Summon for free if you don't have any monsters out and your opponent does".
 * For example, the most effective tactics on one point of the game, is manage your card advantage, and abuse advantageous monster like the Disc Commander, Monarch and LADD. A very boringeyt highly effective strategy
 * This has changed to a degree since the introduction of Synchro Monsters. Shooting Star Dragon for instance, is possible but difficult to summon, but amazing when you do. Same goes for Red Nova Dragon. Also, Synchros have higher ATK than the stars of previous metas, so managing to summon that Dragon Master Knight might actually do you a tiny scrap of good.
 * Nowadays, theres a notable amount of deck that strategy revolve around summoning big flashy monster every single turn effectively. The game have gone so far that something that seems Awesome but Practical before become Boring but Practical
 * In Exalted the most cost effective charms are the excellencies, they either add dice, add successes or allow you to re-roll. No flashy attack flurries, no golden beams of magic light.
 * Oh, it gets even better. Whereas the first few excellencies cost motes (Mana) on a per-use basis, several Exalt types have an excellency which allows them to commit motes and then use the earlier excellencies at reduced cost (or no cost at all) for the rest of the scene. End result? Basic multi-action attack flurries boosted by free excellencies are one of the most efficient means of dealing damage in the game.
 * Perfect Defenses. They're cheep, only serve to negate one attack, but they're pretty much needed to survive attacks being enhanced by other Boring but Practical charms.
 * BattleTech has two examples that stand out.
 * First, there's the medium laser - modest range and damage, but lightweight, compact, heat-efficient and can fire all day long without running out of ammo, which makes it a great weapon for light 'Mechs that can't carry much in the way of weapons tonnage anyway and a great backup weapon for the big guns on heavier designs. It's just perhaps the most ubiquitous 'Mech weapon out there, period.
 * And second, one of the most basic items of the 'modern' era: the double heat sink. It's perfectly boring—all it does is funnel heat (one of the main limiting factors on how many weapons you can safely use in one turn) out of your 'Mech or other eligible unit at twice the rate of the plain old single heat sink for the same one-ton weight. However, because using DHSs on a design also doubles the base heat dissipation capacity it gets for free with its fusion engine before explicitly installing extra sinks and because the game was not originally balanced with this in mind, this item arguably ends up edging right into Game Breaker territory; single heat sinks certainly have generally fallen out of favor as a consequence except on units that explicitly cannot use doubles, or for background flavor reasons.
 * A lot of the stuff in Traveller is like this. Three thousand years in the future and they are 'still'' fighting with rifles. Most commerce is carried, not on Cool Starship s but on great big hulking Megacorperate abominations that fly unadventurously on scheduled routes. The Imperium is ruled, not by a mysterious Ancient Conspiracy but by a caste of the decendants of successful industrialists and soldiers. And so on.
 * In Mage: The Ascension, the core rulebook highlights how every single tradition has developed a simple "heal my injuries" technique. Some magi blast foes with arcane bolts, some call forth ancient spirits, some invent sapient computers, but everybody finds some way to close their wounds quickly.

Board Games

 * In chess, most people will try to learn the flashy openings and glitzy combo attacks, but the tactics of piece exchange should come in second place to the logistic considerations of controlling board space. It sounds boring, but it pays to know when to crack open the defense of a turtling player or to suffocate an aggressive attacker with a locked pawn center.
 * In go, there are dozens of standard sequences called joseki, i.e. "best move". Playing them out according to the standard may seem boring to a junior player, but the reason they became standard in the first place is that they provide both sides with usable structures and "fair share" of the area where it is played.

Web Comics
"Bleen commander: With what? Even a cursory sensor sweep reveals that your ship, while huge, is stocked with primitive chemical and nuclear armaments! (A single missile random-walks into the nearest Bleen ship. The target's pieces fly apart.) Bleen commander: ...albeit of exceedingly fine craftsmanship..."
 * Parodied in this Xkcd strip, when MacGyver uses a gun.
 * In Sequential Art when the cast tried a tabletop wargame, Scarlet could do only The Loonie part, so Kat called her "sisters" to play with Mad Scientist Hive Mind. Two strips later it occured to Pip that Think Tank accumulates Mana, so he attacked before they can cast uber-spell wiping out his whole army.
 * Clan of the Cats: Just how dangerous can a portal sorcerer be? The correct answer: Very.
 * In Misfile, Vashiel is an angel of punishment, so he gets a Big Fucking Sword that flames and can smite evildoers in a second. His brother, Rumisiel, is a filer, so he gets a multi-filing tool, with a recorder, web access, and other things like that. Guess which one comes in handy?
 * Vexxarr had the Bleen meet the Humans on neutral ground... after failing a half-assed invasion of Earth and getting their fleet kicked out of Sol system by ships using hardware reverse-engineered from the first invasion.

Western Animation

 * Hank Hill from King of the Hill embodies this trope
 * Darkwing Duck: Darkwarrior Duck, rather than use a flashy or dramatic way to defeat Megavolt and Quackerjack, just beats them with... a garden hose. No overkill missile launchers, no gas guns (he doesn't even use them anymore), just a garden hose.
 * The Venture Brothers: Brock Sampson and his knife. It's all the weapon he needs.
 * Justice League: How Green Lantern John Stewart tends to use his powers in earlier episodes (somewhat justified by the fact that he's a military man). Katma Tui calls him out on it in Season 2, and from then on he gets a somewhat more creative with his constructs.

Real Life
"In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that?"
 * Humans are often praised for their high intelligence compared to any other animals. However, this is only the second best superpower humans possess. Even more important and providing humans with an advantage over almost any other animals of the plain was the ability... to walk! And keep walking for hours. Many animals are a lot faster than humans but also tire much faster. Humans can travel over very long distances with relatively short amounts of rest and their ability to carry water with them extended this even more. To capture a horse alive, you just had to follow them until they were too exhausted to take a single more step.
 * One of the few other animals with a similar ability to travel over long distances is the trusty dog. The beginning of a wonderful partnership.
 * Shields. Rocks, pieces of wood, animal hide, a convenient wall, and metal shields are damn useful. Modern day shields can be bulletproof so that a gun is rendered silly before them. It functions well with armor and strap shields can be used with any one handed weapon. If you need a smaller one to have an open hand, you can use a buckler. Someone trained with a shield can easily defeat someone without one. Or with one, really.
 * The "Wash" method of shuffling cards. It's not pretty, it's slower than other techniques, looks decidely amatuerish and is the natural shuffling technique of people who can't otherwise shuffle cards (including small children), but when it comes right down to it, spreading the cards around on the table with the palms of your hands is simply the best way to achieve truly random results, so-much-so that proffesional dealers will typically "Wash" a brand-new deck of cards (which will, of course, start-off ordered by suit and by number) in order to properly randomise them before flashier and faster but less random shuffling techniques such as the Riffle take over.
 * Healthy food. While eating a variety of foods and spices will probably be the best way to get all your nutrients, plain food can keep you reasonably healthy (providing you don't leave out any important food group.)
 * Regular, comfortable clothes. Spend a few months rehearsing/acting in a corset, hoop-skirt and high heels if you don't believe me.
 * The humble spear. Basically the next step of weapons development after inventing the knife (or sharpened rock), and has been in use for thousands of years by almost every single culture that has ever existed. It has equipped entire armies, and even now exists in the form of a bayonet attachment for guns.
 * So practical, that it coined the name of an entire nation. The germanic word for spear is "ger". So a spearman is a "german".
 * Roman equipment:
 * The humble short sword and shield of the Roman legions. Compared to the massive swords and axes of their opponents, these seemed sadly undersized but, combined with Roman tactics, it easily carried the day in thousands of engagements. There's a reason it's known as "the sword that conquered the world".
 * The roman shovel, even more boring, but even more practical as the Tool that conquered the world. The Roman legions were trained even more rigorously with their shovels than with their swords. Why? With their shovels, they could construct earthworks around their camps, making them much harder to assault while at rest. They could dig latrines for sanitation. They could build roads so that the legions that would follow them could arrive faster. They could dig underneath walls during sieges, then collapse the tunnels, causing the walls to weaken and fall. You can also improvise a shovel as a polearm or a club. The average roman soldier would use, over a lifetime, his shovel nearly a thousand times more than his sword. After all, you could only use a sword to fight, but you can use a shovel for ANYTHING.
 * To this very day, many armies train their soldiers in the use of shovels (or Entrenching Tools, shortened to E-tools) as weapons. Specific examples include the Green Berets, who are trained in using their E-Tools as hacking and stabbing weapons, and the Spetsnaz who are trained in how to throw them like hatchets.
 * The Spetsnaz Combat Shovel also makes a decent frying pan.
 * Discipline : sure, being a huge fellow with a large sword that can shout loud is impressive. Sure, being the maverick hero who doesn't answer to anyone and save the day by going against everyone's expectation looks cool. But in the end, these expectations exists because following order in a disciplined fashion is just goddamned efficient.
 * How about the bow and arrow? The first truly effective projectile weapon (after the primitive sling). Used and improved upon for thousands of years and only finally outclassed by gunpowder weapons.
 * In fact, the English longbow was arguably the most effective weapon on the battlefield and definitely more effective than guns/cannons for years after their appearance. It simply required LOTS more training (about a lifetime's worth) than a gun or even crossbow.
 * The training is the reason that gunpowder weapons replaced bows and crossbows on the battlefield. You could train a recruit to use the early smooth-bore black powder guns acceptably in a few weeks, but it would take at least 10 years to get a longbowman up to standard. Crossbows were more difficult to learn than early guns, but much easier than longbows.
 * During the feudal era of Japan, arrows took the lives of far more soldiers than any other type of weapon, roughly 70% of the casualties of any major battle, even after the introduction of firearms into the Japanese arsenal. Why? Japan never used metal armor during this time period, the most advanced armors were instead made of lacquered wood, meaning that against a steel-headed arrow coming down from above, they had roughly the same deflective power as tissue paper. Yeah, katanas are cool and all, but they're not much use against a weapon that can kill you before you come within 50 ft of your attacker.
 * By the way—that "primitive" sling? A weapon of terror. Ammo is basically infinite, you can use either specially-made shot or anything small and hard. The Romans dreaded sling-masters because they could kill armored soldiers through concussions. Reloading is extremely quick and trained sling wielders only needed one swing to get to full power. The slingshot is actually a step backwards in lethality. The Spanish armies included slingers until the 16th century - they could easily kill an unarmoured Moslem horseman at distance. Slings were considered so deadly there was a time where their use could be considered a war crime.
 * The late Norm Borlaug is quite possibly the exemplar of this trope in Real Life. He saved about 10 times more people from death than died in World War Two. He spent decades interbreeding plants in a process even he admits damn near drove him insane with tedium. However, the result was the Green Revolution which, increased crop yields to such an extent as to save more than a billion people from dying of starvation.
 * During the Second World War the de Havilland Mosquito was made of wood and canvas, old fashioned and low tech for the time. However whereas repairing a Spitfire took time and effort, a Mosquito could often be patched up by glue and canvas. To quote the Reichsmarschall:


 * I wouldn't call the Mosquito 'boring', given its high performance and usefulness, and its innovative construction (it wasn't 'old fashioned', as it used old materials in a new way). I think it's more properly defined as interesting and practical!
 * More like Awesome but Practical. It was at the time the fastest plane ever built. But it was also large enough to carry bombs and take heavier weapons. The brits often sent them in to bomb Berlin during the day. By the time the Germans had scrambled their planes it was already over the canal. But what if they ended up in a dogfight? Well you're just facing a fighter plane with heavier weapons than you. Oh and it's also a lot faster. And since it used wood and canvas they were easy to repair and really cheap to produce. That meant that you had lots of planes that were in short awesome at everything.
 * Production had the advantage that, being made of wood, canvas, and glues, there was much less pressure on the supplies of raw materials from other war production, making it much easier to get raw materials. Because it was made of materials not being used in most other war production, it was also easier to get people already skilled in their use (it was pretty easy for cabinet makers and carpenters to learn to make parts, for instance, since cutting and shaping wood is cutting and shaping wood). It was also generally easier to train people in woodworking than metalworking needed for metal designs. In combat, the fact that the thing was made of composited wood and canvas held together with adhesives made it a LOT tougher than it looked like it should be.
 * The Hawker Hurricane is a better fit, tube-stell body and wooden wings, with the whole thing covered in canvas. A bit slow and unmanouverable for the bad, but it'd take hundreds of rounds easily, and often survived because the canvas wasn't tough enough to trigger explosive rounds. Also, the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, underpowered, underarmed, and wouldn't look out of place in WW 1, yet 20 of these claimed 1 battleship sunk and 2 damaged at Taranto.
 * The mighty Bismarck. Sank the H.M.S Hood in only a few minutes with nearly every hand aboard. One of the most high tech, powerful naval vessels around. Brought down by a torpedo launched from a Swordfish.
 * Swordfishes were later fitted with radar and used for anti-submarine warfare. Once that happened, the North Atlantic wasn't safe for any German ship or submarine.
 * I-16 by Polikarpov, aka "Fly" (for the Spanish Republicans) aka "Rat" (for the Spanish Nationalists) aka "Donkey" (for the Russian-speaking). When introduced, it was the first low wing cantilever monoplane with a retractable undercarriage used by any military in the world - and thus quite "hot stuff", yes. And the only thing that gave a serious trouble to SM.79 over Spain. But: it wasn't written off until 1943, and there were good reasons for this.
 * It had two rivals falling under the same description - compare photo. I-14 (ANT-31) was actually more maneuverable and did beat I-16 in mock fights, though was inconvenient for production and had even worse mechanization. IP-1 had better mechanization (raising ski undercarriage, not only wheel variant) and better cockpit, among other things, and actually got into small series. How I-16 won? In spin behavior. I-14 was much worse at this, and IP-1 actually crashed in one test when the pilot failed to stop spinning. I-16 failed to enter some spin modes and stabilized easily. When others finally worked out the kinks, I-16 got already mass-produced and polished, and it was the time to develop the next generation.
 * When the more powerful fighters appeared, it was clear that I-16 is hard to boost much even with better engines. But its relatively large wing area still meant good maneuverability - and ability to carry a better loadout, so it was used as a fighter-bomber. I-16 wasn't such a cutting edge as a plane in 1939, but that's when it got air-to-air rockets and fought like this against the Japanese, with convincing results. Later it was used in "Project Zveno" where it carried 2x 250 kg bombs - it couldn't lift off with this weight on its own - for precise bombing, again with spectacular results.
 * The Gruman F4F Wildcat and Brewster F2A Buffalo also deserve honerable mention. The Wildcat couldn't beat a Mitsubishi A6M Zero in a dogfight, but with proper tactics was tough enough to fight them to a standstill. Unlike the Allied fighters that outclassed their Japanese counterparts, an F4F could operate from an escort carrier. The F2A was less capable the the F4F and, the 44 that the Finns got their hands on were the backbone of the Finnish Air Force until they got Messerschmitt Bf109s. The Finnish Buffalos shot down roughly twice as many Soviet aircraft than the Finns lost during the entire war.
 * The old Chinook transport helicopters are easily discernable by their unique shape with two large rotors and no tail, but are otherwise not much to look at. However they have a very large storage compartment and can even lift field artillery right to their employment location, while also being able to operate at altitudes where most other helicopters can no longer generate enough lift to keep rising. In addition, when escorted by Apache combat helicopters, the Chinooks have to slow down as the Apaches can't keep up. It's actually suprising that's its an American design and not made by Russia.
 * Speaking of Russian helicopter designs, there is the Mi-8. It's an ugly thing to be sure, with a rail-thin tail and a huge bulbous body. But it is also nearly endlessly customizable, carries twenty fully-armed combat troops and can take a beating. It's been in service with the Russian military for over fifty years, and while the Ka-60 was intended to replace it, it's looking like the "Hip" is going to be around for quite a while longer.
 * Another WW 2 example is tank warfare on the Eastern Front. The Nazis wasted resources coming up with bigger and better tanks, while the Soviets simply mass-produced their existing T-34. The T-34 was so simple and practical with a decent sized gun, sloped armor and an efficient diesel engine that almost never quit, that it would've made much more sense for the Nazis to copy it. Instead they wasted time and resources overdesigning and building expensive monster tanks with huge guns, thick vertical armor, and underpowered gasoline hungry engines that were prone to breakdown, but were made specifically to take the T-34 down - but they simply could not pump out the numbers to make it worthwhile. The T-34 itself does have its own awesome aspects, mainly due to being Made of Iron and The Determinator.
 * Funniest fact with the T-34 is the poor quality control due to parts being produced at hundreds of factories with varying standards, which exacerbated the fair share of problems the unpolished design had as is. As a result, Soviet tank corps had to deal with steering and braking levers which stuck and could only be released with a hammer, rubberless treads, poor transmission design derived from an abandoned American project (Which still, however, proved to be more reliable than elaborate layered disk treads of Panthers and Tigers). Most T-34s lacked radios. Compared to any Pz-IV or Panther it was a mule against a thoroughbred. But it could still pack the same firepower or even greater, hold its ground with thick sloped armor and most important, it could be churned out by tens of thousands. You can forget any faults when there are a few hundreds of them charging at you, guns blazing.
 * It also came as standard with a 76 mm main gun (later upgraded to 85mm), an aluminium engine block, and tracks that didn't bog down so badly in rough Russian terrain.
 * The Sherman also fit this category. Against a Tiger or a Panther one on one a Sherman would get its turret handed to it. But the allies used its superior speed and production to overwhelm the enemy in large groups. While they shot at one or two Shermans the rest got behind and started blasting away at the weaker backside.
 * In any case tanks aren't mainly for fighting other tanks as if they were battleships. Tanks are for digging a hole through the enemy lines, and getting through and destroying supply lines. Do the math. A good tank is only worth two or three poor tanks at best. It is worth any amount of trucks. That is what people forget when they compare tigers to shermans; they are thinking of heroic duels. But having more and faster tanks means they can dominate the roads while the Tigers simply run out of gas. In other words the real use of tanks is if not boring but practical, at least possibly more boring and definitely more practical then having great battles between tigers and shermans as if shermans were meant to fight tigers in the first place.
 * General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that the "equipment ... most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2 1/2 ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously enough, none of these is designed for combat." The point being that the preparations prior to battle are just as important as actually fighting them. Even though the Germans' best weapons were technologically far better than that of the Americans, Brits, and arguably the Soviets, they 1) couldn't get enough of them to the front, and 2) couldn't keep them fueled and maintained for long enough for them to be useful.
 * There is a school of thought that says the C-47 cargo plane was the single most important vehicle that helped win the war for the allies.
 * The civilian version of the C-47, the Douglas DC-3, was very successful in its own right. Several hundred of them are still flying today in active commercial service around the world, simply because nobody ever really designed an aircraft better suited to rugged conditions. The common saying among pilots is that "the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3."
 * While the U.S. provided the Soviet Union with a number of tanks, bazookas and planes as part of the lend-lease act, many Soviet commanders were most grateful for the thousands of Jeeps that came with the deal since the Soviet union's main method of having its infantry keep up with the tanks was riding them (and you can only fit so many guys on top of a T-34 before the first AT shell blows them to pieces). Tens of thousands local copies of the Jeep would be made during and after the war and were much beloved by their owners.
 * Napoleon once said an army fights on its stomach. All forms of cargo transportation in essence is the evolution of this. The most practical and boring thing in wars are the supply lines. Well, boring until they are attacked.
 * It was Julius Caesar who said an army marches on its' stomach. Napoleon said "The outcome of the battle is incidental to the decisive question of supply." He lost his campaign in Egypt, for instance, because the British Navy destroyed the French fleet that was providing Napoleon's army with supplies. The supplies on hand allowed him to operate for a time, but he left before things inevitably went south on him.
 * "Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics."
 * Late in WWII the US stopped painting their aircraft. Why? Several reasons: The Americans were building aircraft faster than they could be shot down; The Axis couldn't keep up with the losses the Allies were inflicting; radar made camoflage useless; and the Americans didn't care if they were intercepted.
 * The D-day stripes painted on aircraft? It's also this trope because it reduced damage from friendly ground fire.
 * Bruce Lee pretty much loved this trope, up to the point where he developed his own fighting style based entirely around it called Jeet Kun Do (way of the intercepting fist). However, in practice, everything he did off-screen pretty much ended up falling under Awesome Yet Practical, anyway.
 * Lee developed his ideas after observing the stop hit of fencing, which can best be described as follows: when your opponent winds up for something big, stick your sword in him. The rules are a bit more technical.
 * Regular, ordinary cars. They lack the ruggedness of an SUV or pickup or the power and sleekness of a sports car, but are more efficient with gasoline, are usually the cheapest new cars you can find, and they won't make your insurance rates sky rocket. Newer such cars also come with various safety features that will raise your chances of surviving an accident more than a sports car will, as sports cars sacrifice safety features and other luxuries in order to achieve optimum performance. Unfortunately, some people will hate you for choosing practicality over style...
 * The 2011 Mediocrity.
 * This is Toyota through and through, not the best in any field, except maybe reliability.
 * On that note: Older cars amongst regular cars are generally cheaper and still have a good amount of efficiency, even if they have over 100,000 miles on the engine. All it really takes to maintain this car is a decent understanding of mechanics and keeping an eye on your car's fluids.
 * On that note, even the ordinary pick-up truck qualifies. While some you have your "crucks" and your "Oversized pickups for fashion and compensation", the majority of them are massed produced utility vehicles designed take a decent amount of cargo and one or two people and move them from one place to another. The basic design of the pick-up truck hasn't changed in over half a century. It's safer then many other vehicles in most types of common collisions because Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest SOB on the road. It's so damn utilitarian that if an ordinary pick-up truck is properly maintained and driven normally you can even get more mileage and years of usage out of a good truck then a car and have average to better than average gas mileage.
 * The Sturmey Archer AW internal gear hub: Originally designed in the 1930s as a mix of parts from their other hubs to provide a low-cost seller, the hub became the standard gear system for bicycles up until the 10 speed fad of 1970s. Unbelievable reliability has kept it in production for over seventy-five years.
 * Walking. The simplest and most reliable way to close a short distance. Your own two feet can work in any weather, can't be stolen (easily), costs nothing, doesn't need (much) maintenance, can take short cuts cars and bikes can't, never have to worry about running someone over, needs no garage to store, helps you get fit and still work reasonably well if you're drunk.
 * The basis of Collegiate wrestling. Most common takedowns? High Crotches or Double Legs (Because you can't go wrong with basically spear tackling a guy and trying to throw him off to the side.) First taught and commonly used Escape? The stand-up. Pin? Half nelson. All of these moves are some of the first taught to new wrestlers and seasons.
 * The jerry can (or jerrican). Its simplicity betrays a sophisticated nature. It was designed to be operable without pump or funnels, and the multiple handles mean it can be easily carried together. And that 'X' mark you see on the side? That's not just for show. It reinforces the sides, and it allows the content to expand without warping the container. It's one of the first German technology adopted by the British in World War I. Even now, the jerry can design has been used in more civilian goods, like liquid detergent.
 * The AK-47 rifle is the most widely used rifle in the world, it ain't flashy but, while its reliability has been greatly exaggerated.
 * Not to mention you can make one in your backyard with some metal scrap and a barbecue if you know what you're doing.
 * Bringing the two rifles up on a shooting forum is pure Flame Bait, but the AR-15 family is arguably even more boring and practical. The bullets aren't as big, but it's lighter, has about three times the range, extremely accurate and modular enough for the same rifle to be used for any mission or competition. The reliability of modern models is also highly underrated.
 * Topped by the even older SKS and Sten, weapons which can and were built in people's sheds.
 * Somewhat coupled with the M3 "Grease Gun", made by General Motors (yes, that General Motors).
 * Also the M-1911. It is often times called an American masterpiece of firearm design, and was only replaced by the American Army after Vietnam. With very few to no changes the design is still popular today among police officers and civilians, at least in the country of origin. It's also used in the Marines (See the MEU(SOC) Pistol) and by many American Special Forces groups, who prefer it to the M9 for the .45's excellent stopping power and the gun's world-class reliability. A near-100 year old gun is still the beloved favorite of soldiers generally considered to be at the cudding edge of modern warfare.
 * This trope applies to a whole lot of guns. There may be incredibly complex and detailed Fabrique Nationale pistols, but really a Colt .45 still does the same job it did 100 years ago. There are bullpup auto shotguns which only have an advantage of using more ammo more quickly, and there are assault rifles that are almost sophisticated enough to look like a HUD from Halo, but as mentioned above, the AK-47 still pretty much does the job.
 * Most assault rifles fall under this class. They aren't as big and powerfull as sniper rifles, as small as pistols, as as dakka...y as machine guns, or as cheap as submachine guns. But they can mow down a group of hostiles, and you can stow most in a backpack. Although since the AK 47 and M16, they tend to be more Awesome Yet Practical, being lightweight, powerful, and reliable, such as the H&K G36 or the FN SCAR-L
 * Glock pistols fit this. A very plain looking black pistol, sometimes ridiculed by old timers as a "plastic gun," it's nevertheless one of the most reliable firearms in the world, easily on par with the AK-47's famed reliability and tolerance of abuse and neglect. And to top it off, it has very simple mechanics, lacks a traditional safety, is very simple to clean, and costs about half what most 1911 clones or high end revolvers cost. There's a reason why nearly every police department in the US has adopted this as standard issue.
 * Revolvers in general. They don't carry as much ammo or look as flashy as automatics, but they're compact, deadly, and almost impossible to jam.
 * While we're still on the subject of firearms, how about the lowly .22 Long Rifle cartridge? It's rimfire, meaning it's low-pressure and awfully weak compared to other ammunition, and thus is not recommended for striking down anything larger than a rabbit. Then again, the proven design is older than any human alive, has less shock than a pellet rifle, and is so ubiquitous that you can buy hundreds of rounds for a few bucks. It's what competitors use in the Olympics. And yes, it can kill someone.
 * Also, being a "weak" rimfire, it escapes most restrictions on what types of guns you can buy in urban America, meaning you can legally possess an "assault weapon" even in gun-phobic states like California, as long as it is chambered for a .22LR
 * How about ridiculously commonplace 12 guage pump action shotgun? Reliable, Accurate, relatively lightweight, Conserves ammo while still being rather fast-shooting. Most models are pretty much the build-a-bear workshop of guns- you can pick any type of stock, any capacity(through extenders), any barrel length, and any sighting arrangement. Not to mention the fact that the ammo comes in dozens and dozens of variations, from Jack of All Stats buckshot to more specialized ammunition like slugs, flechettes, and even crazy things like Dragon's Breath. All of this is for less than a quality handgun.
 * Heck, you can put guns in general under this trope. Sure, a lot of them have complex features with a lot of parts, but they all function around the same simple principle: accelerating a chunk of metal to a speed at which it can hurt someone or something.
 * True castles, as compared to palaces or houses "Inspired By" castle architecture. Being built for defense and protection means that they're usually cold, dark, and not very nice to look at. But hey, it withstands a siege really well!
 * Trenches. Bad guys have guns? Big guns? Artillery? Dig a ditch and use it for cover. Foxholes are an even simpler version, literally just being a big hole you dig up and hide in. You can even put a smaller deeper hole in the middle of it in case the bad guys chuck a grenade at you. Just kick the grenade into the hole and your chances of surviving just went up considerably.
 * The cargo container has radically transformed shipping over the last 200 years. Instead of moving dozens of boxes or barrels one at a time, you just put them into a single cargo container and move that. Standardize the size of cargo containers and you can have trucks, ships, and traincars specifically designed to carry them, and infrastructure to transfer them from one to another. Simple, boring, and so useful that it is difficult to imagine doing it another way.
 * Pencils and paper. Incredibly simple, lightweight, and almost 100% reliable in all conditions as long as it's not wet. And a lot cheaper than those i- and e- items.
 * A book. Although it may or may not be about to be replaced by e-readers, for the last few thousand years there has been no more economical and efficient means of containing information.
 * The comparison to e-readers is particularly appropriate... the book may not be electronic or have an internet connection, but it never runs out of batteries, doesn't have problems with funny formats or DRM, doesn't break when dropped, doesn't cost $200 to replace, and if your friend borrows a book, you can still read your other books. E-readers have a lot of advantages, but books definitely fit this trope.
 * To quote Carl Sagan: "For the price of a modest meal you can get the history of Rome".
 * Rice. Not counting flavored, spiced, salted, egg, or with a curry/sauce. Just plain rice. For its size it is incredibly rich in nutrition and energy.
 * They happen to be an excellent flavor buffer for a lot of saucy foods. That or they just go good with saucy foods (or with sauce in general).
 * Noodles. Just like rice, they go well with a whole host of sauces or seasonings. Anyone for spaghetti and meatballs?
 * Potatoes, as well. They don't look like much, but they did save Europe from continous famine for quite some time.
 * Potatoes also grow in a lot of places where cereals won't. This allowed massive population expansion in countries like Ireland where a lot of land isn't suitable for cereals but potatoes like it just fine. (Until you hit the problems of monoculture agriculture in a pre-chemical environment...)
 * Tap water. Doesn't look very fancy and tastes pretty bland. But it's far less expensive than juice, far healthier than alcohol or soft drinks, and is far better at keeping you hydrated. And is readily available at home whenever you want it.
 * And if you live somewhere where there is no reliable source of clean water, the old fashioned beer takes that place. Since it gets boiled during production, it's usually much cleaner than any unfiltered water. Calories and carbs in tasty, drinkable, preserved form. Staff of life, potable water, and recreation all in one.
 * Depending on one's opinion, this could make beer Awesome Yet Practical instead.
 * Tea and coffee also serve(d) the same purpose, although they have neither calories nor carbs in quantity unless you add sugar. In fact, if you're drinking good enough coffee, you don't even need condiments to make it taste good.
 * In the same vein, boiled water. Boiling water clears away most (but not all) of the bad stuff in any local sources by killing it through extreme heat. It can cook food for you while making sure that (provided you drink the resulting broth) very little of the nutrients are lost. And all you need for it is to make a campfire and gather some water.
 * The vibrate option on cellphones. Sure, it doesn't let you show off your personalized ringtone that everyone is dying to hear, but it's very useful in noisy environments and, in places that demand reduced noise levels such as libraries and inside smaller stores, it'll notify you of a call or new message without pissing off everybody around you.
 * Not only that, but if you put the cellphone on the right surface, it can be suitably loud enough to get your attention.
 * For all the focus most writers and the general public place on bold high-risk operations, the majority of useful intelligence has been and probably will continue to be gathered through open sources. To quote General Anthony Charles Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command (CINCENT): "80% of what I needed to know as CINCENT I got from open sources rather than classified reporting. And within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%. At the end of it all, classified intelligence provided me, at best, with 4% of my command knowledge."
 * Boring old tactile keyboards over cooler, more "advanced" touch screen keyboards. Why? Because you can navigate a tactile keyboard solely by feel while keeping an eye on the display. Touch screens are, well, flat and more time goes into looking at finger placement than would on a tactile keyboard.
 * While we're on it, boring old PCs over flashy tablets, for similar reasons. Marketing for certain tablets can go on and on about how it's the "post-PC" era, but their relative cheapness, mass producability, and tactile input means that they'll likely stick around for a long time.
 * Don't forget computing power. Even a basic laptop will outperform a tablet, to say nothing of a high-end gaming desktop.
 * Plus, just try writing a term paper, essay or novel with a tablet sometime. Yes, you can buy a keyboard for your tablet, but at that point you just have a laptop that costs more and does less than a regular one.
 * Until the day comes that someone creates something that can replace the tactile input of a PC, we really won't be in the post-PC era for awhile.
 * Microsoft PowerPoint and its clones allow for fancy presentations involving colorful backgrounds and exciting text effects and slide transitions. However, the best way to get your point across tends to be a simple, plain background with few (if any) text and transitonal effects and tasteful use of images and clipart, rather than something out of a typical Myspace page. Unfortunately, many students up to high school (and in many cases, even in university or even after schooling) don't get the hint...
 * For hobby-grade r/c boats, constructing the hull out of wood rather than fiberglass or carbon fiber. Wood does not carry the same cachet of a hull made of high-tech composites, and are often sold in kit form, requiring you to build it yourself (Glass hulls are almost always sold ready to accept their hardware.) However, wood is cheap, and, if built correctly, just as strong as fiberglass (though not carbon fiber, although its use is largely limited to large scale boats.)
 * For gas r/c boats, the humble Homelite and Zenoah engines. Converted Homelites (they are typically used for yard equipment) powered the first gas r/c boats, while Zenoah released the first dedicated marine engine, the G23. Its successor, the G 260 PUM, is the most popular engine in the hobby. Stock, they will reliably power most hulls at a respectable speed. When modified by a skilled engine builder, the G260 can chuck out about 6 hp (increased displacement and/or aftermarket top ends can further increase that,) up from a claimed 3.2 hp, and can push the fastest hulls up to 100 mph, depending on setup, hull, and conditions. The Zenoah is so ubiquitous, that every other brand of gas r/c engine is designed to fit in the same footprint, and parts commonality is, well, common. The only realistic challenger to the Zenoahs crown are the RCMK engines, which are sold for not much more than a stock G260, but can develop 5 hp, in addition to far better after-sale support.
 * The humble .csv (comma separated value) file. It is a plain text file, with rows of data, and each value separated by a comma. Doesn't have fancy formatting, tabs, or other genuinely useful tools that an Excel file can have, but is loved by IT Admins and programmers everywhere for how easy it is to have a script read. In addition, there are a variety of programs specifically designed for editing .csv's, for those who don't like working with plaintext, and spreadsheet applications like Excel and OpenOffice Calc have .csv support.
 * By extension, any and all utilitarian IT standards. ASCII text, f'rinstance, doesn't come with fonts, or nifty accents, but every Goddamn computer in the world can read it. Dial-up internet access is slow and inconvenient, but everybody who has a phone can use it for low cost.
 * This article on The Daily WTF argues that application programming in general is made of this trope when done properly.
 * The knife. Sure, it's probably mankind's oldest tool, but it has that title for a reason. It's a tool you can use to cut, make new tools, and can be used as a weapon, which is probably the only melee combat weapon still widely used by a modern military
 * Really, a knife is this in spades. It almost falls into Awesome but Practical territory when you take into account the sheer versatility of a good knife. It has literally countless uses, even around the average home (Cutting open packaging, use as an impromptu screwdriver or hammer with the butt, use in place of scissors, and thats saying nothing of it's culinary applications), and if you ever ask a survivalist what three things to take into any survival type situation, they'll list off "Knife, fire or way to make fire, and clean water" in that order. If your stuck in the woods with just a knife, with a little thought you have it made—a knife can net you all the tools you need to make fire, get food, and get the resources to make clean, drinkable water. Saying nothing of it's self defense applications, a knife is probably the single most versatile tool ever created.
 * Skis and the slightly more awesome dog sled for moving across snow. One of the reasons Amundsen won the race to the South Pole (and, you know, survived) was the use of these two simple methods of transport. Scott on the other hand wanted to use high tech mechanical crawlers that soon broke down due to the extreme conditions. There have been claims that Scott and his men didn't even know how to ski, usually with the implication that they would have survived had they known.
 * Penicillin. It kills most bacterial infections and saves lives. There's a reason it used to be considered a military secret.
 * While we're on the topic of medicine: modest exercise, a good diet, rest, avoiding alcohol in excess, tobacco altogether, buckling your seat belt, reading the directions of every medication you take, sanitation, hygiene, basic screening tests, and vaccination. This sounds as sexy as saw dust and yet if followed rigorously by a population would dramatically reduce the burden of disease. Even the half-assed implementation in the modern world has lengthened life expectancy by many years.
 * The Times typeface.
 * Courier and Courier New as well. Clean fixed-width fonts used by many programmers and those who work with documents where positions of characters matter greatly.
 * Verdana is also a common and effective typeface for Net text.
 * This site uses Trebuchet.
 * The humble sandwich. It makes any foods taste good together, in a portable, no-silverware package that can often be an entire meal that fits in your pocket. It can be made for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and is almost always one of the healthiest things you can eat.
 * Medieval alchemists spent a great deal of time looking for a "universal solvent," capable of, well, dissolving anything. It took a very long time before anyone realized that you'd have trouble finding a more versatile solvent than plain old water.
 * In the days when the Cool Train was hauled by steam, the most common and useful steam locomotive was the 0-6-0 goods engine (think Donald and Douglas from The Railway Series). The long boiler allowed the locomotive to build up a lot of steam and conserve it, so the locomotive would not need to be cold-started every time it needed to move. As all the wheels were driving wheels, the locomotive had a lot of tractive effort for its weight. It had more adhesion than the 0-4-0, but could go more places than the 0-8-0. The 0-6-0 was not fast, but it was a powerful little machine, and pretty much every country that used steam locomotives used the 0-6-0. Examples would be the New South Wales Z19, the Prussian G 3, the Caledonian 812, the LMS Fowler 4F, the GWR Dean Goods, the North Eastern 1001 class, the North British C Class, and the USRA 0-6-0.
 * In North America another example is the 4-4-0. It wasn't as flashy or fast as later engines but it handled rough terrain well and was very simple mechanically, making repairs easy.
 * Ground-based Anti-Aircraft systems are pretty boring compared to sleek and sophisticated jet fighters going missile-to-missile, but planes are expensive to manufacture and pilots are expensive to train and difficult to replace, especially the best ones. A well-utilized Surface-To-Air missile network and anti-aircraft artillery is a very cost-effective way to establish air dominance, as both the Vietnam War and the Yom-Kipour War proved. This is primarily the reason why stealth aircraft are becoming popular, because many nations are shrinking their Air Forces and widening the use of their ground-to-air systems.
 * The Infantry. As noted by Robert Heinlein, while technology may evolve to include incredibly dangerous tanks, bombs, aircraft carriers, missiles, nuclear weapons, and everything else that can conceivably kill a thousand people inside a nanosecond, there has only ever been one branch of Armed Forces remarkable in it's consistency; a man, trained or untrained, between fourteen and fifty years of age, and a weapon in his hand. This man, or in recent times this woman, has endured the scorching jungles of Tenochtitlan, and the unbearable hell of Stalingrad. When a Tank rolls across his path, he puts a bit of fuel in a bottle, sets a light, and throws it underneath. When a plane flies overhead, he finds a ridge and hides under it. When poison gas lands near him, he pisses on his handkerchief and covers his mouth. He can fight in damn near any conditions, run on, in comparison to other forms of warfare, miniscule amounts of fuel, cross any terrain, in time, and defeat any foe given enough of him. He is the Duckfoot, the Mehmet, the Tommy, the average infantry soldier. He is the most boring arm of any Armed Force, to the point that many of it's members are forced to be there. But, boy, is he the most practical
 * "You can bomb it, you can strafe it, you can cover it with poison, you can turn it into glass, but you don't own it unless your infantry's on it and the other guy's isn't."
 * This is one of the reasons why Western martial arts have been downplayed or ignored in most media compared to Eastern martial arts. The latter is known for being exotic, with often thematic naming of forms and styles and some level of mysticism fused with the styles themselves—making them excellent for flashy media depictions. European martial arts, however, had more straightforward names of both schools and techniques, and as such don't seem quite as impressive-sounding for media depictions.
 * Some Eastern Martial Arts get the same treatment as well. About ten or fifteen years ago, people were more likely to have heard of Karate and Kung-Fu (which are often used as umbrella terms for a variety of Japanese and Chinese Martial Arts) than Judo or Muay Thai. However, with the popularity of Mixed Martial Arts growing over the years, the later two are becoming more well known. Ironically, their popularity in MMA has to do with the fact that they largely ditch the flashy posturing for practicality.
 * Brazilian jiu-jitsu is probably the single best example of this trope in the martial arts world, as it is extremely effective and extremely boring to the vast majority of people. Those who don't train don't really understand the complex positional battles or the attacks, counters, etc. being used; so while one combatant may be dangerously close to getting their arm broken or being choked unconscious, most of the audience sits there wondering when the action is going to start. Watch a match or two on YouTube and you'll see what I mean.
 * The French art of Savate at least historically. It developed from harbor brawling.
 * Similarly the rapier, the supposed mark of the gentleman duelist used to be a thug's weapon. In fact the term swashbuckler came because town toughs would swagger around making as much noise as possible with the buckler hanging on their belt and "swashing".
 * The medical dressing. In use for thousands of years, incredibly straightforward to apply, easily capable of saving wounded people from various horrible deaths, cheap to make, quickly obtained from clothing or other nearby items, it's perhaps one of the most enduring elements of medical technology ever. Now it exists in thousands of different variants, from the humble Band-Aid to Awesome Yet Practical complex and fancy dressings intended for severe trauma victims, but it certainly seems like it's not going anywhere soon.
 * Soviet/Russian military clothing is an example. This was especially apparent in World War II where the rougher-looking, more utilitarian gear of the Soviets was contrasted with the snazzy Hugo Boss-made uniforms of the Nazis. Soviet winter clothing was considerably warmer during winter than German clothing, even their winter gear, and it was common for German troops to loot such clothing from slain or captured Soviets. This even extends to today as attempts to phase out the old greatcoat in the military with newer more body-fitting modern winter gear was stymied by the fact that the new gear just wasn't that good during the really cold spots, resulting in cases of hypothermia and frostbite.
 * They were also so thick, they could be considered a form of low-grade body armor. The WW 2-era Commando knife's seal of quality was it's capability to pierce a Soviet-issue greatcoat. U.S troops in Korea also reported that their M1 carbine's .30 Carbine round could not reliably penetrate the thick winter greatcoats of Chinese troops which were identical to those used by the Soviets.
 * Despite having an arsenal of high-tech weaponry, the ability to call down airstrikes at the ready, the very latest in military vehicle technology and the best equipment available to a soldier, U.S Special Operations forces in the early part of the Afghan war found the best way to get around in isolated, mountainous country was the same one that the Afghans had used for centuries; the horse.
 * This is one interpretation of the drumming style of Ringo Starr. Some Beatles fans find his drumming tedious, uninteresting and bland. Others feel that this is his greatest strength - when the other three band members were pulling in different styles and directions, he was always able to adapt to a reasonable level, no matter what style they were playing in. John Lennon in particular would only work with Ringo for a long time after the break-up of the band because he was able to give Lennon exactly what he asked for.
 * Office workers. Those niggling behind-the-scenes clerical tasks you either don't know or care about or might not want to come within a century of? These guys are the little jar of oil that keeps the department running like clockwork. Think of them as real-life Worker Units.
 * Maintenance workers are almost the exact same thing, except that they take care of the grounds on which we earn our living.
 * The Lab Rat.
 * Rope. Yup, it's almost as old as a stick - and it's funny how many jobs friction (and occasionally gravity) can do for you. Tying many common knots is simpler than the proverbial ability of fastening shoelaces. Remember, with little practice most of these can be - and were - used efficiently despite bad lighting and severe rocking, by The Drunken Sailor who pays more attention to not being blown overboard. Blackwall hitch is barely enough to be called a knot at all, yet has its uses - e.g. to hold a sack closed tight under its own weight, yet accessible immediately by lifting off the hook. Bowline can be tied in a few seconds with one hand. Constrictor (holding so well that people used to simply cut it), transom knot, miller's knot (can hold a sack mouth tight when immobile, but easy to weaken and untie), cleat hitch (a common way of mooring) and rolling hitch all differ from the trivial clove hitch only by one extra slip or wrap of the rope. Only a few, like "Monkey’s Fist" and Masthead knot are somewhat complex - and they have many uses, too.
 * A large part of tactics and operational art is essentially traffic direction. The general who most efficiently makes large columns of men move about the way he wants them-and herds the enemy into doing whatever he wants them to do, wins.
 * While long out-paced in fire-rate, bolt action firearms have high reliability and first shot accuracy compared to more advanced semi and full automatic weapons.
 * The Mosin-Nagant rifle: A design over a hundred years old (and you might get a rifle that physically is) and outdated for a large portion of its service life, but it's cheap, built to withstand the Russian winter, simple enough for a conscript to use, takes cheap ammo (As not only was enough made for the rifles, it is still in common use today), has all the power of a full power cartridge, and is fairly accurate.
 * There's no shortage of fancy muzzle devices for sale for the AR15 platform with cool spikes or dragons attached to them, yet it turns out the best for hiding flash is the plain looking, dirt cheap (often free with barrels), standard issue for US rifles A2 Birdcage. While the A2 is a poor compensator (it was never intended to be one) one of the best devices for all around performance in all areas for judging a muzzle device (recoil, muzzle climb, flash hiding) is also a cheap, standard issue, simple looking muzzle device.