This does highlight the difficulty of manufacturing a complex system in small quantities without the opportunity to do an end to end test before use.
You have no idea what parts of it are or are not cutting edge. I guarantee you many of the parts and pieces in the rocket required pushing boundaries. All the little bits of material science, modern computational analysis, and advanced manufacturing techniques are cutting edge.
They're using cutting edge stuff here and there, e.g. friction stir welding, which is a good match for the long seams in boosters, but mostly its organizational, and clean slate, not starting with a military rocket which is developed for and under different constraints. Or explicitly (Apollo) or implicitly (Space Shuttle and beyond) as a public works project, where cost is secondary to employing a lot of people.