That's why artificially differentiated steps are critical. If the "deploy to test" procedure looks exactly like the "deploy to prod" procedure, except with diff

That's why artificially differentiated steps are critical. If the "deploy to test" procedure looks exactly like the "deploy to prod" procedure, except with different servers, then you're asking for human error. Ensure the test deploy procedure will always fail if run against prod targets when half-asleep. Whether it's something like requiring a different config setting or a reload or an account switch. Anything that breaks the process-as-usual.