Remember 101 is the minimum requirements for places considering people safety. You have to keep in mind that if premises (money, bussiness continuity, etc.) are important, these will not be necessary adressed correctly in 101. Also, local codes or AHJ rules or other may differ from 101.
When using 101, you need to understand some concepts that may be not clear for novices and it would be hard to understand the code without some criteria explanation. For example, the concept of "means of egress" is missunderstood by common sense as an "emergency exit" and this may lead you to mistakes and waste of time if you don´t have the correct concept in mind, so adittional reading and courses with experienced people are useful.
Also remember the 101 does not contain design methods it is just the law that summarizes the required rules to set a standardarized balance for all the parts to relativeli happy.
For me, the best point of view to see the 101 is that a safe bulding must be designed by a good architech that does not need to use the 101 to design, he knows how to design by his methods, experience, modelling tools, etc. The 101, building code, AHJ are just to check that everything has at least the minimum standard requirements. The 101 is dangerous if you think you can use it to do the job of an architect.