People would figure out what you mean and forgive you because you're only a learner of Japanese, but you may get a few strange looks for some sentences.
The commenter's research study in your cited question, attributed to a study done in 1989 by Shinji Sanada also shows
もっと早く{起きると/起きれば/起きたら}よかった。 I should have woken up earlier.
- Tokyo: 4% と; 94% ば; 2% たら
- Osaka: 0% と; 20% ば; 78% たら
右に{行くと/行けば/行ったら}、ポストが見えます。 If you turn right, you can see a
mailbox.
- Tokyo: 75% と; 16% ば; 8% たら
- Osaka: 4% と; 13% ば; 83% たら
This shows that in some cases, people will view things differently. But, there are cases where you'll confuse people by using the wrong one.
If you're using the Tokyo dialect, which I'll assume you are, note that only 2% of people use 〜たら in sentence 1. So it's uncommon. If you do interchange between them, you can generally get by because the sentence means nearly the same thing, but the subtle nuances between the options will exist. And yes, most people in Japan aren't really aware of the rules in my experience.
And there are sentences where you can't substitute them at all. It's worth using them as "normally" as you can. To do this, all you can do is hear as many examples as you can.
As for how to get used to it yourself, you won't get a sense for it from SE; try listening to radio, or as most people do with Japanese, watch Anime. Every time you're on the bus daydreaming, listen to Japanese. Every time you're washing the car but not doing anything else, listen to Japanese. Every time you've got an hour to spend during the day, listen to Japanese, even if only in the background.
This kind of goes with everything linguistic -- the more you use it, the faster you learn, even intuitively. You don't need to do it as obsessively as I described, but if you were to do it that obsessively, you'll learn it faster.