I finally cured that phantom knock after 4 days, but was it worth it?

So I chased a knocking noise on a 2012 F-150 for basically 4 straight days. Thought it was the lifters, pulled the valve covers, checked everything, nothing. Then I looked at the flexplate bolts, they were fine. Turned out it was a loose torque converter bolt that was maybe 1/8 inch backed out, and it only showed up when the trans warmed up to operating temp. Took me 30 minutes to fix once I found it. Here's my debate: is the slow systematic approach better because you learn the whole system, or should you just start with the most likely cheap fix first? I had a buddy who would've thrown a new torque converter at it day one and it would've solved it, but that's $700 in parts versus my $0 fix after burning a week. Has anyone else had a job where the long way actually taught you more than the shortcut, or do you always kick yourself for not trying the obvious thing? What's your call?

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