What you are saying is true to a degree and debugging was 90% of the work in my career. Finding the smoking gun IS the key as you said.

It depends on where the developer is at in their journey too.

For some, "look in the logs" is a challenge just to find out what they are and where to find them and what they are saying. A great piece of advice for a person in this position.

For others, "There are files that hide in the caves of your computer's consciousness. Find what causes the shadows on the walls." is a valid call to dig deeper :)