From my experience - important tech decisions should be made as a result of conducting proper research (not to mention getting the team involved and listening to all view points). At least that's what we do before making such decisions.
Transparency is one of the most important values since whole team needs to agree to selected solution/famework/you_name_it and everybody need to be on the same page why thing_a was selected and not thing_b. That makes the team to consolidate and also to trust their CTO.
I'm working in the area where lots of startups work on the same open space and I have heard lot of stories where CTO was making decisions backed only with "reputation" and they brought more issues than good.. The team was unhappy and the solution turned out not to be the best one.
Ask them what it is that they are trying to accomplish. Go deeper, ask what does success look like to them.
Understand that some of these Old Exec Duffers are looking to you for guidance and expertise. They need & want options.