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I believe I got my instincts to attack from above largely from the book "Attack & Defense".
I share your instincts, acquired not from that book specifically but from being surrounded by western players. But I long ago came to believe that those instincts were wrong in many respects, and also that the source of the problem was other western players (including, perhaps, as in A&D, a western author), and more specifically western languages. My belief has been the source of constantly harping on about the meaning of thickness
I have recently become even more convinced that this mismatch in language is the root of slow progress in the west.
It's a subtle thing and I haven't got either the time or the inclination to make my case rigorously, but anecdotally, I can easily explain why my conviction has grown.
I introduced what I called Go Wisdom into my book Genjo-Chitoku. This was an appendix covering all aspects of go theory so designed as to enable the reader to think about the game commentaries in a more expansive and self-controlled way. Although the text discussing the theory topics may seem to be the main element, I found that the indexed references to each topic in the actual (pro-based) commentaries were in fact the most significant aspect for me. I was rather shocked to see how often certain words came up in the Japanese-based sources that were words that exist in an English form but are used by us much less - and vice versa!
To give two examples that relate specifically to your post: (1) The concept of bases (and, as part of the same nexus, settling) is much, much more common in Japanese. Tsume/checks (which are, after all, in part base-making or moyo-making moves are very, very common in Japanese, but rarely highlighted by westerners. (2) Attack is very, very common in English, but in Japanese is less so, and when it does occur it is in a much nuanced form. As I have mentioned before on L19, the Japanese tend rather to refer to specific kinds of fighting: torikake, seriai, karami, motare, semedori, ijime, etc - each with its own set of often vastly different parameters. 'Invasion' is likewise 'too' common in English, and the Japanese meaning is different anyway.
I first noticed this in Genjo-Chitoku, which had about 90 commented games, but I have now noticed it with knobs on in Games of Shuei (now being proof-read) which adds 133 commented games to the databank. And also more games in Go vs Iwamoto in the forthcoming book on their eleven-game match.
It will, therefore, presumably come as no surprise that I also find that the way the new insights from AI are being talked about differs strongly according to whether you are a Japanese pro or a western amateur, although I'm sure both are useful. FWIW things like insights about e.g. attacking sideways don't seem to come up in what I've read in Japanese books/mags on AI. There the focus seems to be predominantly on overconcentration and efficiency. Obviously it helps if you already have a high standard of efficiency, as pros do, and so western amateurs probably do have to start somewhere else. But I feel sure deeper consideration of the languages of go should be part of the package.
Incidentally, in your second example, where Lizzie recommends a magari, to someone who has seen Shuei's predilection for L shapes that came as no surprise.
Also in 1994, Berlekamp introduced his idea of komaster. I talked about it on rec.games.go and Sensei's Library. I gather from your writings that pros do not use the idea of komaster to calculate the values of approach kos, 10,000 years kos, and the like, and consequently often get those values wrong. I spoke about it at ICOB 4, where we met. That was in 2006, right? Has any pro taken up the idea of komaster since then?
was barely on Elf's radar, with 0.1k playouts, so it inherited its winrate estimate from Elf's choice for 
, as shown, with 23k playouts. White's actual play was at a. 
? It is really hard to play yourself because you don't have an opponent.