Been playing since B/X and Ad&d with the same group of people, so over 40 years, and I've never played in a campaign where I got higher than 11th. And we've played a LOT of DnD. During the pandemic (in the last 3 years), playing online with the same group, we played a mashup of Tiamat/STK for 2 real years and I got to W12/F2, so effectively 14th level. And the DM stopped the game (brought it to a conclusion) because it was pants on head stupid the capabilities of the party compared to the modules/antagonists.
So, for every example of "we always play high level", there are actually counterexamples of "we always played low levels". And, for the record, I prefer low levels, with 7th in B/X and Ad&d as being my sweet spot - high enough to survive fairly easily against orcs and such, but actual monsters like dragons and demons and things were challenging. So, yeah.