When encountering problems with Apache Kafka, such as an exploding number of connections or wonky record batching, it's essential to consider these issues as symptoms of a broader problem rather than isolated problems. Instead of treating individual symptoms, diagnosing and debugging can help uncover the root cause. Monitoring broker metrics, such as requests per second, network processor idle percentage, request queue size, total time taken for requests, and response send time, can provide valuable insights into the performance of Kafka clusters. By analyzing these metrics, developers can identify potential issues, such as inefficient batching, high client metadata requests, or over-committing consumers, and take corrective action to optimize their Kafka setup. Understanding the root cause of problems is crucial before making changes to applications, and exploring additional resources, such as Kafka Connect and Kafka Streams, can help deepen knowledge of the Kafka ecosystem.