There's a temptation to tease out the complexity of an oversimplified topic by adding on to an appealing diagram. I argue that often goes astray in a particular way: all that's remembered is the appealing diagram.
content
Royce's last
Winston W. Royce described a waterfall process for software development and tried to show it was not complex enough for the problem. All people remembered was waterfall. (The details: Royce's Diagrams๐ฏ)
Marick's last
Brian Marick worked similarly: a series of complications to an aesthetically pleasing diagram, with the goal of replacing the original with something completely different. The audience reaction was to ignore the complications and retreat to the simple version. (The details: Marick's Diagrams๐ฏ)
I think of this (perhaps metaphorically) as the original image getting "stuck" in the brain, remaining salient while the more complicated images flit past, leaving no lasting visual impression (except perhaps that of "some mess.")
In order to avoid the convenient forgetting of messy facts, the reader has to step up affirmatively to read a graph in a more critical way. But the author should help the reader along.
amelioration is the name of the game
One thing the creator might do to help is have an ending section that warns the reader away from what amounts to a cognitive bias 
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Maybe Royce could have ended his paper with some diagram that emphasized the delta between the narrative progression of his argument: the difference between start and end.
Perhaps, having arrived at a final diagram via a series of additions, Royce could emphasize that by subtracting out the starting point:
What Royce used vs. the "subtractive" version
figure 2
An appropriate accompanying message would be "The heart of the paper is all the stuff that remains when you subtract out the starting point (figure 2). It's those things you must remember and keep in mind for your projects. The starting point is easy. You won't forget *that*, so don't worry about it."
...
Yeah, I too doubt that would have made a difference in the reception of Royce 1970ยป, but it can't hurt to try.
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