My first set of sawhorses lasted about 45 minutes before one leg just gave up and went sideways on me, and I stood there in my driveway holding a half cut 2x6 like an idiot. I told myself I would add bracing "later" for like two years. Later never came, the wobble just became part of my process.

Raking all the way through is not the devil here, the tension and the overlap are. If you pull smooth and slow with the right amount of product, going root to tip is the only way to get the new growth and the ends on the same clock so the whole strand processes even. Angling off the scalp and stopping short is how people end up with puffy roots and under processed ends that break later anyway because the line of demarcation is still there. Thinned ends from raking usually mean the comb was yanking through tangles or the relaxer sat too long on hair that was already weak, not that the downward motion itself is bad. A fine toothed comb pulled flat through a well based section is fine, a wide tooth yanked through dry tangled ends is what kills people. Dropping the rake for everybody is throwing out a tool because some folks used it wrong.