Looks like a very convoluted way to say that you should avoid mistakes, but with confusion between familiarity and in depth analysis. Worst surprises generally

Looks like a very convoluted way to say that you should avoid mistakes, but with confusion between familiarity and in depth analysis. Worst surprises generally comes from non verified expectations, and ends up to hard to workaround problems that becomes clear in hindsight «It never really worked that way». You have better chances to avoid that with tech you are familiar with, but the only real way is to verify how the thing is built, and on what principles, confront that to your knowledge, and if it aligns you have greatly improved the chances of things going smoothly. Since people are generally not rational and rarely do those checks, when working with a team, going with familiarity is the safe route.