I love that everyone seems to know what everyone else in the group wants.

There is no "3 people want it this way and 1 doesn't!" regardless of which way the wind is blowing. Just take the 3 seconds as the instance is loading in to actually talk to each other.
It's all assumptions regardless of what you think the meta is, what your own personal desires are, what you had for breakfast this morning, etc.
But yeah, if you're using DF you are going to put in a group with random people. That's your choice so, if you're making that choice, you should try to work together with the people you are grouped with. And yes, this means players of all stripes may need to play either above or below what they're comfortable with. Just remember that the game doesn't put any goalposts on DF other than clearing the content so, regardless of what you think the meta is, anything beyond that is player created and shouldn't be applied to everyone who plays the game.