It's funny you mention that. The only difference is sometimes you need a functionality without doing the plumbing. At the end of the day if you're getting the output you need, the process doesn't matter. It's an interesting analogy but only works if the inspector is another expert dev.

When I have such moment and I take a step back, there’s usually a strong hint that there’s a meta problem behind those instances. And while you have to chose when to take the time to solve such problem, it’s usually worth it.