It struck me as an oddly specific part of a large codebase to immediately jump to, but in retrospect it makes sense.
I'm all for reading code, but I think that if you can get away with not reading code, it's actually a good sign - it means all the abstractions are holding up. jgreen10 probably didn't go off and start reading the assembly code that is generated when you compile Node.js. Again, I agree with your larger point. I just want to be careful before snubbing my nose to those who don't always read up on modules they use before using them.
Well, there's no way to know whether something is reliable for your purposes unless you understand how it works... Is it uncommon to read code?