Nah, gradparent is not a wizard, just someone who has spent a lot of time in a single relatively simple environment that is mostly under their control. It's a beautiful thing when it happens. Most aren't so lucky.
+1 to the above, it's just a different environment. I haven't used a debugger at my current (mostly Python) job at all, whereas at a previous job in C++, I was using gdb practically every day.
He is taking after Linus Torvalds, who resisted adding a kernel debugger for many years. Linus used console spew, PC speaker beeps, and storing a hash of file/line into the PC's time/date.
... who resisted adding a kernel debugger for the explicit purpose of keeping casuals out of his zen garden, per your link below.
For people who don't have a hoard of elite developers banging down their gates to contribute code for free, I suspect the economics of being such a Prima Donna are not as attractive.
Those last two (speaker and clock) yes, but otherwise no. Linus Torvalds really doesn't like using a debugger and he'd rather you didn't use one either. His words: