That's a brutal lesson to learn, and I feel for you because that schedule pressure is real. I've had similar moments where trusting the familiar crew cost me more than the specialist ever would have. Your sample piece rule sounds like a smart way to protect yourself, and it's probably worth the extra day every time.

my buddy greg used to have this ancient copy of clue from like the 70s, and his grandma made up a rule that if you landed on the same square as someone else, you had to trade one card with them. we thought it was just her being weird, but turns out her whole neighborhood played it that way growing up. one time we got so into it we forgot to eat dinner and his mom came down to find us screaming at each other over a pipe wrench, haha. idk man, those weird rules are half the charm, even if theyre not in the book.

Honestly, same thing happened to me but with my starter, I was adding it too early and everything came out gummy. Once I started letting that flour and water hang out first, it was like night and day, total game changer.