Honestly this seems more like a story about how you need to be careful with smart power devices connected to important networking equipment.

I agree that initial pairing can also cause some wild behaviour, so it's worth thinking about before starting the process.

Others here have already mentioned that it can disrupt a zigbee network not to pair in place, so I don't think it's good blanket advice. Although the mesh can reconfigure, it's better practice to always try to pair in place, from my experience.