Soviet ground forces kit was relatively simple compared to its western counterparts, and effective for it’s intended role in Soviet doctrine. That said, once the wall came down and former Soviet equipment was exploited in quantity, much of it was found to have limitations inherent in the design or engineering that rendered it less capable than comparable western equipment. An example is the T-64/T-72/T-80 family- to be low to the ground, fast, and able to suppress enemy defenses with HE or destroy select hard targets with HEAT/Sabot/tube launched ATGM. They were outclassed by larger western designs like Challenger, Leo 2, and Abrams with superior armor packages, equal or better automotive performance, better fire control, and better materials technology in their ammunition, especially Sabot rounds. But, there were a lot of them...
If anything most NATO/Pact stereotypes should be swapped around and nuanced.
Soviet ground is anything but simple: mechanical transmissions took more parts and man-hours to build and were harder to use by crews unlike the more common Western hydromechs. The 5/6TD engines were way, way more complex than any Western engine. Tanks feature autoloaders which are by nature more complex than having a human loader (but there is a big difference between more complex and too complex). Soviet pre-NERA composites and castings were trickier to build than NERA once it existed. Cooling systems were high-temperature and high-pressure and often incorporated aluminium (BMP) which is more complex but more compact than Western solutions. They used stampings at the scale of armor plates. The entire Air Defense network is vastly more complex than NATO systems since they used integrated TELARs most of the time, while the West had far more towed systems or systems with separated launcher and radar units, to say nothing of the fact that the Sovs had more AA categories in general.
Soviet IR seekers were generally ahead of Western ones until very specific models.
Even the way the East built artillery shells was more sophisticated, they had to extrude and then mature the charge for several months, which allowed large batches of extremely consistent rounds while the Western system was less consistent but didn't have a multi-month lead time and is thus more reactive to crises.
But sometimes the Western solutions that were simpler were also better, and there were concurrent Soviet solutions that were also better and simpler than the solutions they picked (eg 5TD being way more complicated than competent turbodiesels like UTD series without offering greater performance due to the limitations of thermally-stressed 2-stroke engines, or UVZ/ChTz and Western hydromech being better than mechanical BKPs from Kharkov for anything that is not a 5/6TD).
Soviet tanks proper are extremely varied both between families and inside families, so their relative performance compared to Western products is also varied. For example T-72s had a "mediocre" FCS until the BU model intended for the 90s, but T-64B and all T-80s had FCSes competitive with M1, Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 and are available in similar numbers, while T-72 effectively increases Soviet numbers beyond what the West had. The Sovs also have a far more consistent fleet in overall protection than the West, with BV variants, T-80U/UD and T-72B onwards being competitive with M1A1HA/A2, post-1988 Leopard 2, Leclerc, Ariete (Leclerc and Ariete being on the weak side) and the Challenger 1/2 turrets, while the West still operates a large amount of steel tanks and early M1s/Leo 2 (and Challenger hulls). Same goes for firepower once modern APFSDS proliferates. The only area where the Soviets will remain inferior for a while is mobility where only 80 series compete, and thermals since a retrofit is not gonna happen any time soon.
This is beyond the scope of this thread, but Soviet and Western deficiencies alike are rarely caused by the economic, doctrinal and political systems proper, but more by specific policies or design choices from very specific engineers. That is to say they were not inevitable nor permanent (the latter point matters for 90's and 2000's discussions).