Why is there animosity toward modernizing English spelling?

[Ediacara]

Or:

Way iz ðer ænəmasitiy tord madernayzin Iŋgliʃ spelin?

Whenever this is brought up on DU (generally in the Lounge) there is a huge firestorm about the dumbing down of the language or people supporting replacing English spelling with leet. It's a total non sequitur, no one supports that. Is Spanish dumbed down when its spelling periodically changes with changes in pronunciation? Has anyone ever seriously thought that English spelling should be replaced with leet, which is generally just as non-phonetic?

What I want to know is why people cling so much to an almost entirely non-phonetic spelling system that hasn't changed much in the last 500 years. At what point do we come to the conclusion that English spelling is just too absurd to live with? Are we already too far gone and any change would be seen as derailment?