Big box stores hire kids who read from a script and their "diagnosis" is just whatever gets the sale closed. A clicking drive almost always means the heads are stuck or dead, and that's a head swap in a clean room, not a lost cause. I keep two labs on speed dial, one in Texas and one in Ohio, and I always call ahead to ask about their turnaround and no-data-no-fee policy before I ship. For anyone without a clean room, just be upfront with the customer that you're a middleman, most people respect that way more than a made up answer.

Picking at the end of the meeting sounds great until you actually try it. Half the group already left, the three loudest people steamroll everyone else, and you end up with the same fantasy series you swore you'd never touch again. Over email at least the quiet folks get a say without being talked over in real time. Also "finished 3 books in 6 months" is not the flex you think it is, that's one book every two months, which is about average for most clubs anyway. How do you know the meetings themselves didn't get shorter once nobody had to argue about the next pick? Feels like you solved a problem that email was never causing.