REST is a great way to solve certain kinds of problems, and various WS-* technologies provide great ways to solve certain other kinds of problems. What causes this kind of ad absurdum posturing is when people try to force a single solution on every problem.

Some people overuse WS-* technologies on the mistaken assumption that WS-* is a monolith. That it is one architecture, one standard, or one product, so if you’ve used some of it you might as well use all of it.

Some people adopt WS-* when REST would be a better for their current requirements because they overestimate their future requirements, but in the long run we’re all dead.

Some people adopt WS-* because they are aping other vendors or think being WS-* checklist compliant will provide interoperability for free.

Some people think that because a proposal or standard starts with WS- it must be worthy of adoption, or that the architectural assumptions inherent in the proposal are always valid – WS as a misleading superbrand.

These pathologies are a recipe for failure no matter what technology choices are made, they are not unique to WS-*. In fact, you could tweak the list above to warn against mindless adoption of any approach.

Not every problem is well solved by REST, so then what happens? A RESTafarian bends the problem to fit the dogma and fails just as resoundingly as the dogmatic WS-OneSizeFitsAll nemesis.