Just not my night, I guess

[Jazz P Bass]

Being made out of electrodeposited lead, vias are a poor imitation of a real connection.
A sensible trick is to place 3 vias in a cluster whenever tracks switch sides .

That idea is sensible.
I was taught that 'vias' are a necessary evil to be reduced to the lowest count possible.
While 'autorouting' is the quickest approach, the layout often fails under close scrutiny.

[Steve Conner]

Vias are far cheaper and more reliable than they used to be. It's really not a problem to use them nowadays, and there is no need to use several in parallel unless you're handling a lot of current.

For small board runs, the cost of the extra design time needed to get rid of some vias can exceed the incremental cost of having them on the board. There is also signal integrity to consider. Some people will make a track go by a tortuous route halfway round the board to avoid a via, and it ends up picking up noise.

I did once have problems with the vias on a batch of extra-thick 6 layer boards. I think they forgot to blow the drill debris out before they started plating. Every board had at least one open via, a pig to troubleshoot.