"Smart" is certainly subjective. And one can, given enough time and practice, "figure out" all the things the author listed.

The problem is time. A lone dev just can't take the time to setup the full stack every time for every project at every client. What to do?

Templates, scripts, pre-made configs ... soon you have a stack that will deploy itself and all you have to think about is structures and algorithms. And now you look like a 10x dev. Not because you "know everything in the universe," but because you leveraged technology ... much like our customers want to leverage technology.