You ask, “Are there any other phrases that describe this situation?”. It appears that there are; examples follow.
In an article called Missing the trees for the forest, N. Petrossi gives an alternate wording: “... they have focused on all of Orange County’s home market stats and failed to see that it’s the “Trees,” the individual cities with their individual areas that are especially important.”
In another article called Missing the trees for the forest, Dorsey Wright MM rephrases it as “Even if the economy is crummy and returns from the market are not enticing, there may be plenty of opportunity.”
In another article called Missing the trees for the forest, Yvain says “when people consider an idea in isolation, they tend to make good decisions. When they consider an idea a symbol of a vast overarching narrative, they tend to make very bad decisions.”
A more complete analysis appears in another article called “Missing the trees for the forest: a construal level account of the illusion of explanatory depth”. The authors write:
An illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) occurs when people believe they understand a concept more deeply than they actually do. To date, IOEDs have been identified only in mechanical and natural domains, occluding why they occur and suggesting that their implications are quite limited. Six studies illustrated that IOEDs occur because people adopt an inappropriately abstract construal style when they assess how well they understand concrete concepts. ...
Following that reference, the phrase “illusion of explanatory depth” or the acronym IOED seem like reasonable alternative wordings of “Missing the trees for the forest”.
