I don't think we have reduced understanding of techniques. Software always had fads and programmers using them without understanding. The "Architecture Astronauts" article is now 20 years old! https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/04/21/dont-let-architect... And before that you could find rants that the real programmers are supposed to be using assembly, not high-level languages for noobs, like C.

And the examples you present are not cluelessness, but economies of scale fully utilized.