In a typical production, brand, type, mode, and address must be documented in the planning stage.
When loading-in, the fixtures have to be hung and mode and addresses set correspondingly to the documentation of that show.
This is the job of the stagehands. They mostly don't have the possibility to verify their work and detect signal faults, flickering devices, and so forth.
Now you can start patching.
Flickering devices may need isolation with an extra splitter put in between.
Introducing RDM in this chain may cause extra flickering devices because they don't understand this protocol (yet). (This is under the condition that every piece of hardware between the DMX interface and the fixtures can repeat RDM signals.)
With fixed installs, RDM is your best friend. In the wild, I wouldn't rely on RDM. There are so many factors to the equation that cause you to debug the hardware layer, where you should spend your time setting up your showfile.
Experiment with RDM in a controlled environment, randomly add a splitter and a 50m DMX cable in between and try to add an extra fixture to the end of the DMX line. You might quickly scratch the back of your head.
My 2cts to that matter
All electric machines work on smoke... when the smoke escapes... they don't work anymore
