Or, if you disagree with their opinion: hidebound, closeminded, timorous, etc.

I think the parent was going for something indicating disagreement, so it seems unlikely that your "positive" adjectives are what they were looking for.

I've been on both sides of the equation, having disagreed with sysadmins about their enforcing of a particular login shell, and having been a sysadmin myself. Not installing fish shell on production systems ("across the farm") is something I'd chalk up to wisdom, not a lack of open-mindedness. I was subtly suggesting that in my choice of positive adjectives.

Really, you shouldn't be logging in interactively into production machines, so no need to install extra tools by default.

This to me makes too many assumptions. I'm sorry but experience doesn't mean wise. And in many cases experience can mean complacent or scared of change.

Neither experience not wise was used. Older was used. You are comparing two possible substitutions with each other, not the original term. There's not much point to that.

I just found HN a couple months ago and have been lurking since then. I just want to comment on how nice it is to see such sane conversations, and how reading all these comments makes me happy, and that I feel really at home here even just lurking.