Do not agree with any of yr decade 'best programmer' characterisations. What you are actually describing is the typical mediocre programmer of each period, and definitely not the best.
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What is mediocre about using the most efficient tools available at the time?
Just doing that is not the only indicator of quality of course, but that is besides the point.
If you take 2 devs with the same knowledge level and skill, the one that uses the best tool will have an edge and will outpace the other.
The thing that is lost with the adoption of more and more abstracted tools, is a functional grasp of how the complete system functions.
You're talking around the issue. The best programmers have the biggest mental caches, at any level.
I see it more as weight lifting. Yes, you can lift more with the help of ai, but there is a tradeoff when the mind begins to atrophy because you let the ai do all the heavy lifting.