I trust an individual judge's opinion on almost any topic to be more intelligent than that of an individual jury member.

But there's huge selection bias in who becomes a judge, and so we end up with a pool of people who are mostly former prosecutors, which is another pool with a huge selection bias.

All of the judges I know personally (though not all I've been around) are well-meaning, fair-minded people, but with maybe one exception they're all true believers in the fairness of the system, and all tend to give tremendous unearned deference to prosecutors. We should absolutely not make them the finders of fact in criminal cases.

I want the judge to keep the lawyers in check so they cannot. Judges are trustable because the jury limits their power. If I am a lawyer I know whothe judges are and it is to my advantage to figure out their bias (including judge shopping if there is more than one in the area), looking for embaressing things or blackmail material, what bribes they will accept (often in form of donation to a family charity) and so one.

which is to say the reason I trust judges is the jury keeps them in check by ensuring there isn't value in the above corruption.

What is the reasoning, judges are above racial bias?

Norway has a tradition of using panels of judges that uses a mix of professional judges and lay judges drawn from the jury pool. I don't recall the specifics on when this systems used vs. a regular jury. They deliberate with the professional judge, has the majority, but can be overridden if their reasoning is blatantly contrary to the law.