Agreed on all counts. Humans also rely on lots of workarounds, they’re just well-tested ones we all share so we don’t necessarily notice, and they go by names like culture, convention, procedure - all the ways we avoid solving problems de novo each time we encounter them.
Have you ever read Niven’s The Mote in God’s Eye? There are aliens in it with an instinctive but highly specialized ability to make complex tools. It is so easy for them they do it custom every time, so no two screws, handles, or coffee machines are the same. Other “breeds” of alien from the same world, though, have much more of what I’d call general intelligence, and are quite willing to kill the barely-sentient toolmakers whenever needed.
