I guess I’m in that camp. I can come up with a good abstraction after working on a problem for a while and refactor it into my code. Or I can come up with a really simple abstraction (eg a Go interface with 2-3 methods), and that usually works well. But I try to avoid starting a project by defining a bunch of abstractions, since I just end up writing loads of boiler plate. Yes, I’m probably doing some things wrong.
Sounds about right. Proper abstractions are difficult to get right up front, might as well pull them out only when they're obvious and profitable.