With anything, there is a balance that is required. The stuggle between engineering and management is not at a loss for historical documentation (ref. any/all Dilbert &/or Scott Adams books).
Good planning is a skill that helps any project- but that skill comes from intimate understanding of the project's components/requirements.
When the planners are disconnected from that intimate knowledge, that's when the going gets rough.

I sypathize with the parent poster- I'm just now getting back into MS Project to organize a simple list of tasks. It's taking longer than just using MS Word because I have to re-educate myself in the functionality of Project. Isn't there a way to associate resource availablility with task schedule? The 'resource' column must be there for a reason!