This sounds awfully like the self-soothing mantra slop-kiddies everywhere tell themselves.
Plenty of people have a deep understanding of software/hardware, as that's the context here. I personally can take you from usermode, through the kernel (both NT and Linux), down to the hardware interface, explaining the vast majority of systems along the way, and critically, as they relate to performance concerns.
So can plenty of others who actually know+understand things.
Not unique to gamedev; during the boom at the turn of the millennium the bar to entry to programming was dropped on the floor to fill demand.
The vast majority of programmers today don't even understand the basics of how-computer-work - not just microarchitecural considerations but even how to interface with the kernel efficiently / understand the performance considerations of their target platform.
Ask your average programmer how to say, simply perform I/O efficiently as possible on NT given some workload characteristics. One needs to first understand this before they can begin making concessions in favour of other demands (abstraction, flexibility, ect) and very few programmers can even get beyond the starting line.
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