The huge majority of people asking questions on SO are noobs and most likely haven't thoroughly considered all other options.

If they did, they should say so in the question.

The majority of people answering questions are also noobs, and this should be taken into account. Experts in their domain don't need SO, and so don't go there at all.

When I was writing my thesis, years ago, SO was already basically useless to me because nobody could solve any of the problems that I was encountering then.

I just use it when I can't be bothered to look up stuff in the documentation, but I see it mostly as a resource for people who are learning or are very early in their career.