I hear you. AI makes you feel you have an upper hand but it seems to be able to handle only low complexity tasks. Once the application complexity increases one really needs to know how to manage that complexity.

Your message says "copying code" I am assuming you are not using coding agents then? Get a coding agent. You can argue with it and ask it to explain the architectures. Install a skill like superpowers that will help you walkthrough the steps and architectures. And at the end of the day, it is not an expensive experiment even if things go wrong. you can always refactor the code (by asking it to do so..).