Did you ever read that FAA safety brief about how United started doing something like this back in the 90s? They had mechanics keep a running log per tail number and it cut repeat write ups way down. I heard about it from one of the old timers in our shop. Seems like the paper log catches stuff the tracking program misses because you actually have to stop and think about what you wrote. The program just wants codes clicked in, nobody reads it later.

My track record for calling cracks is about as good as my track record for picking winning scratch tickets, so take this with a grain of salt. What's worked for me is dye penetrant on anything that looks iffy, plus comparing both sides of the ring since a real structural crack usually runs deeper and shows up on both. Surface scoring tends to stay put while a bad one keeps growing every time you look at it.