In SIN and LHR the Controller can light up the dedicated taxi route, tailored to the clearance. All the troops then have to do, is ''follow the greens". I often wondered how much traffic it could take without conflict, but it always seemed to work ok. I hate to say it, but a few pilots still got it wrong. The trouble with large Long Haul Operators, is their networks are so big, it's not uncommon to go to a place only once a year. You never gain 'local knowledge'.
These experts that say, "just look out the window'' wouldn't last five minutes in somewhere like Chicago, especially at night in the rain with ''Yank Speak'' at five hundred miles an hour. Taxing around is where most mistakes are made.