Exactly. Thung is, people thought "Ocean's Eleven" when it is more like Raiders of the Lost Ark: the NPC antagonists also have the PC extremely outgunned, so going in hot and heavy is unlikely to work, so some sneaking and skill based encounters are going to be the path forward...which is what I also believe Perkins was thinking of with the "heist" imagery.
Honestly, I find Dragon Heist both terrible and great. The adventure itself, IMHO, is terrible. Linear, stupid and boring. I would never ran it. The book, however, is fillet to the brim with ideas, characters, locations and maps. Using the remix from The Alexandrian and adding plenty of my own, I ran what I consider one of my best campaigns ever.
I feel like that criticism and praise apply to most campaign books that Chris Perkins worked on, being great smorgasbords of material with mofe or less weak prebaked "plots". Though I think that both the strengthes and weaknesses typical of his style are quite exaggerated in that particular book, indeed.
