Although the pilots cannot be blamed for not understanding the undocumented controls of the 737, one (multiple?) incident(s) were mitigated due to very experienced pilots understanding the fundamentals of the plane. Think of the pilot knowledge as a second line of defense, against an incident that should have never happened (again - not the pilots fault, but the additional knowledge helped).

I recommend reading “Flying Blind” for more detailed accounts of the precursor lion air flight that almost crashed.