Without doubt destination familiarity and recency make a huge difference.
Presumably that is why many carriers have either specific crews for specific regions or as with some of the more interesting destinations, crews specifically picked and trained for a particular destination. Madeira being a case in point.
Most operators have crews that have done their apprenticeship and first commands on narrow bodies and have 10s of thousands of combined hours on the flight deck.
This is not the situation in EK where there are no narrow body aircraft. For many captains a B777 or A380 is their first command. This combined with an equivalent lack of hours in the RHS must make the cheese holes bigger.
This is NOT blaming the guys in the seats, the lure of big white shiny jet as a first command is a big draw (for some).
Maybe the introduction of, or implementation of regional specialised crews, based on ability, not seniority just may go a long way to reducing or stopping the repetition of these close calls.
ps. I do not think ATC were a big factor in this, however, JFK is standard with JFK and nowhere else. I have also been nearly seriously screwed by them in bad weather.