Why do we always assume the worst first? Had a similar thing happen on a feedwater heater where I was checking for a tube leak with ultrasonic and it was just a bad spiral wound gasket that got pinched during install. The torque sequence is always the culprit when you rush a flange make up. Nothing worse than burning four hours on something a half decent torque wrench and a step by step would have caught.

It's like that thing where people try to skip the boring parts of learning anything. I've seen it with cooking too - everyone wants to make fancy meals but can't even dice an onion right. The basics are the foundation for a reason, and jumping to the complex stuff just makes everything harder in the long run. React clicked for me too once I actually understood how JS reads and changes the DOM, same way my friend finally got good at cooking after he learned proper knife skills. It's cool when you realize the simple stuff is what makes the complicated stuff work.