I know you admit that it's a gross oversimplification but this kind of talk still bothers me a lot. It's a lot like when, to use a (honestly shoddy) metaphor, people talk about rankings in a video game like League of Legends. Some times you'll hear talk like "the difference between a bronze and silver player is game sense!" or "objectives control!" or "mechanics!". The truth is it's all of these things and none of them. A silver player is simply better than a bronze player.
I think the same goes here. There's not some magic thing that a senior developer has that a junior developer is missing. They are simply, overall, better.