But this assumes that Docker provides _no_ advantages in time-savings, which is simply false. The person who recently responded to me noted that themselves. There are several scenarios where Docker is superior, especially in cases with external dependencies.

My point is that the universal argument that Docker is inferior to manually copying binaries is flawed. It's usually put forward by people who fit in the narrow scenario where that happens to be true. If we can agree that both options have trade-offs, and that a team should pick the option that best fits their constraints, then I think that's pretty much where most of the world sits in thinking. There are extremists on both sides, but their views are just that, extreme.