This is where a balance is required. Poor old WW - widely drubbed by all and sundry, as maybe he should be. There is no doubt that the Captain will ultimately take responsibility here, as indeed he should, but we can and should all learn lessons. I will certainly be redoubling my efforts on night time taxi routes. I have personally become a big fan of the night lighting system used at Gatwick, and indeed at some other airports, whereby the specific taxi route is lit up for each aircraft. It is not foolproof and is only as good as the 'taxi-mation' supervisor operating the lights, but it does provide another layer of protection. Arguably the biggest single protection is an alert crew but, as has just been ably demonstrated, even the most experienced and capable crews are capable of errors on occasions. Layers of protection are the way to go and the individual night time taxi patterns are one more layer.
As an aside, have a look at this clip. It shows what can go wrong when an experienced crew mess up taxi patterns at Providence (USA) some years ago in Low Visibility Operations (around 150m RVR). Bear in mind this was an experienced United Airlines crew who have no doubt done so much better on countless occasions - sadly this was not their best moment, or indeed that of the Controller, and you can see how easily and quickly it all goes wrong.