Not really, that's just one of the opinions, another could be to have opinionated defaults with an option to change anything, so highway isn't the only alternative

Except "opinionated defaults with an option to change anything" is called "configurable", which is the antithesis of "opinionated".

no, configurable only captures the second part, there are plenty of projects that are configurable, but have bad defaults, leaving everything to be set up properly by every single user instead of doing tha config upfront (and expressing an opinion re. how it should be configured)

For example

- being able to change an encryption protocol is "configurable"

- Setting the default to be unencrypted so that the user chooses it is "unopinionated defaults".

- Setting the most modern encryption protocol by default is "opinionated defaults"

All defaults are opinionated defaults. The fact that you consider a particular default "bad" supports that claim more than anything.

To your point, setting the default to be unencrypted reflects the opinion "this layer of the stack shouldn't be responsible for handling encryption unless the user has no other choice".