[mmt]

> "a fresh look" and may occasionally happen to be useful

The use of three words to hedge the usefulness aspect, somewhat contradicts the original assertion of opinions being undervalued.

I happen to agree that a fresh look, in the form of an opinion from a non-expert, can be extremely valuable, especially since I'm acutely aware that I'm certain to be biased on any topic where I have expertise from experience. However, that value seems to be proportional to how well-informed it is.

That is, if the opinion is based on insufficient knowledge (that can be obtained other than by experience, such as with a Web search), it can easily result in a subtle form of talking past each other that doesn't reveal itself until after a long back-and-forth. Sadly, that mostly just reveals fundamental gaps in knowledge, rather than any fresh perspective.