We certainly need abstractions for the first layer of the hardware. An abstraction of the abstraction can be useful if the first abstraction is very bad or very crude. But we are now at an abstraction of an abstraction x 8 or so. It's starting to get a bit over the top.
I disgree with your sentiment. One thing that is constant in my experience as a computer programmer, there are always "old" computer programmers complaining that there are too many abstractions.
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