Very well put!
There’s of course value in talking about tools, too, but these kinds of questions rarely ever lead to interesting conversations about tools! Like you say, it’s just kind of small talk.
It’s like this with pretty much everything. Look up a random video of someone drawing something on a computer? Half the comments are “what brushes do you use?” A cool photo? “hey what camera is that? what lens is that?” I’ve even seen people share some AI-generated “drawings” only to be asked “what prompts did you use?” People just looking for a shortcut, thinking that the end result of creative process is only, exactly, the sum of the parts and nothing else.
The other side of it is that people are seemingly unable to invest time into something without making it their whole identity, and then need to seek validation. Some reassurance that they made the right choice or whatever.