Also not an expert, I wonder if there's some rule where a "Go around!" order has precedence over any other activity anyone in the cockpit wishes to perform.
As a passenger I had my first go around a few days ago, but we were 5km away from the runway.
I experienced my first go-around a few months ago, in an A321 that was landing in Tampa.
The clouds had been very thick for awhile. The plane was making those weird low-and-slow vibes that it makes on final approach.
We popped out of the clouds and there was a highway with cars! A huge parking lot! (An airport, too? Certainly, but I didn't really see a runway or any runway-adjacent stuff.) To my inexpert eyes, we just looked to be impossibly low for our location.
The folks in the cockpit apparently didn't like what they saw with their eyes, either. In an instant, the engines roared as they simultaneously pointed the thing upwards. My little pea brain was very impressed by the immediacy of the forces on my body as we disappeared back into the clouds after what was at most just several seconds of visibility.
Anyway, it was very clear that there was no hesitation to the go-around. However that decision was reached, it was then simply executed.
The next attempt went very smoothly about ten minutes later.
It totally does. Every approach briefing includes instructions on what they will do in the event of a missed or unstable approach. The procedure is generally full throttle, nose up, gear up, retract flaps, head in the direction briefed, and notify ATC. All automatic from memory.
When either pilot calls for a go-around, both are supposed to drop literally everything else, execute the go-around without delay or hesitation, and then pause to analyze the situation once ATC gives them a heading and altitude or holding pattern to regroup.
The only thing lost in a go-around is fuel and time.
Any sane airline will never punish a call to go-around if done so in good faith.
As a passenger I had my first go around a few days ago, but we were 5km away from the runway.