Is lack of experience a good reason to discard a technique or technology?

Recently, I was talking to a friend who was in a consulting business and the conversation involved some architecture design he was considering.

After taking in his requirements and his approach, I gingerly offered my view on this. I proposed a solution to use a technology that is what the world is adopting to solve his kind of problem. He listened and then he rejected it. I thought that was odd and inquired about the rationale behind it.

He told me that he and his company did not have this kind of expertise but did not want to tell the client. Doing so would reveal its technical weakness as he wanted his client to depend on his company's technical expertise. Kind of weird logic to me.

Not trying to be pushy but genuinely wanting to help him to move with the flow, I told him that he would be making a grave decision because he did not have the expertise to say with high degree of certainty that that technology was right or wrong for his problem. He therefore needed to seek assistance from those who possessed this kind of knowledge.

We did not reach any conclusion but I walked away totally disgusted of how unethical one could be in IT industry. Not giving the client the right solution because the one who was supposed to help the client to come up with a solution does not possess that kind of knowledge.

Image a GP suspecting the patient having brain tumor not recommending brain surgery because he/she does not know the surgery or does not know how to diagnose the patient. In medical world, the GP would without hesitation refers the patient to a specialist.