Memorising openings is also a crutch for players who aren’t that good so I’m not sure if I would use that as a benchmark for good players.

Memorizing openings is not a crutch. It's the only path upward past a certain point. It is impossible to play competitively at, say, the 2000 level if you haven't mastered a few openings.

If you want to play 800-level chess, you can have fun without knowing any set openings. Well, almost. You'd better be able to recognize and defend scholar's mate at a bare minimum.

But that is a bit like being an amateur programmer who never learns what a function is. You can still enjoy programming at that level, but it's odd to describe functions as crutches.

I doubt if you can play competitively at the 1600 level without knowing some opening theory. That'd be like playing against a 3200 for the first six moves and then hoping you are not worse. GP has no idea what he is talking about; it is stronger players who study theory. Weak players may/learn a few tricks/gambits, but you have to learn at least enough of those to avoid them.

I wouldn’t agree with that. Memorising openings is something you do so that you don’t have to repeatedly calculate every tactic in a position, and to help you reach a favourable mid game

Besides, once you get into the middlegame, you still need the tactical and positional skills that I suspect you consider opening knowledge a crutch for

In chess (and life) it’s far easier to pattern match a solution for a position rather than coming up with a brand new solution every time

In my opinion, this makes memory and experience far more important than intellect in chess, especially in the faster time formats

There are bad players who know openings, but there an no good players who don’t know openings.

Without opening theory you will just get worse middle game against any competent opponent. Furthermore, if you could just calculate everything ab inito your play would be identical to “memorized opening,” alpha zero did learn a lot of standard openings from self-play (without being shown these opening explicitly). If someone plays a “bad” opening in a serious game it’s because not only they don’t know theory but they also can’t calculate well enough.

Memorising openings is also good for avoiding well known traps like the fried liver, fishing pole or Eric Rosen's favourite the Stafford gambit. Most strong players have a variety of book openings memorised.

I feel personally attacked. But I didn't downvote you because you're not wrong.