I'm with you on the blue elephant, it's big clear visual and concrete. But more abstract concepts I feel a word helps me maintain clearer distinction between variations of related concepts, such as between 'duplicitous' and 'dishonest'.
With layered concepts, I feel a word allows me to work with a concept as a symbol, without holding the full complexity of the concept in my head at the time : 'cross site request forgery', 'franked investment tax credits refund', 'microservice' or 'monolith'.
I know that I don't _need_ the word to think of concepts, but my experience is that I _do_ use them, it feels like I'm actually using higher level concepts that are organised around or at least paired with words, and that having a word somehow becomes my entry point to vividly reconstruct a complex concept. As your example illustrates, if something can be illustrated with a visual image, or a another sensory experience, this happens wordlessly, but a word can substitute for a concept that has no sensory association.
I know that I don't _need_ the word to think of concepts, but my experience is that I _do_ use them, it feels like I'm actually using higher level concepts that are organised around or at least paired with words, and that having a word somehow becomes my entry point to vividly reconstruct a complex concept. As your example illustrates, if something can be illustrated with a visual image, or a another sensory experience, this happens wordlessly, but a word can substitute for a concept that has no sensory association.