I'm more a fan of 'seat of your pants' programming but to be fair, if abstractions are good they are meant to be a solid bedrock upon which to build a higher level mental model. For example, assembly is one such bedrock - you don't need to understand microcode or transistors to get the most out of it. C is arguably another, Java arguably another (understanding the JVM is nice but not essential).

It's only due to the deficiencies within certain abstractions that it frequently becomes necessary to subordinate and go lower down the chain.