Articles themselves are relatively rare (though they're a European areal feature, to the extent that they're added into some languages that otherwise wouldn't have them). Gender is another thing that isn't universal at all - and where it does exist, is more likely to distinguish between, say, long pointy things, humans, and non-flesh food than between masculine and feminine.

Not like that. It's more about what amount of information you are expected to share in any given context vs. what would be seen as excessive, such as would you expect to hear "there was an accident" or "a valve broke and the cooling fluid spilled".

You won't find things like this in a grammar book, it's kid of more like what bitrate the language aims for.