I also want to mention, as Geoff indicates in the OP, that once you start looking on the time scale of months and years, I think motivation becomes an obvious factor. One way you can think of it is that you have to ask not merely whether this epistemic heuristic a good fit for a person’s environment, but also ask how likely the person is to consistently using the heuristic when it’s appropriate. Heuristics with a high effort-to-information ratio often wear a person out and they use them less and less.
I also want to mention, as Geoff indicates in the OP, that once you start looking on the time scale of months and years, I think motivation becomes an obvious factor. One way you can think of it is that you have to ask not merely whether this epistemic heuristic a good fit for a person’s environment, but also ask how likely the person is to consistently using the heuristic when it’s appropriate. Heuristics with a high effort-to-information ratio often wear a person out and they use them less and less.