That "it always does" line got me too, so now I watch the hose before I trust it.

My cardboard addiction is getting out of hand

Taping a little star on your lens didn't fix anything, the sun did. You said yourself the screen was blown out all afternoon, so of course your hit rate went up once you stopped staring at a washed out image. That's not the star, that's you finally watching the actual scene. And f8 on red rocks in daylight gives you so much depth that almost anything in that range looks sharp, so you could've taped a gum wrapper there and gotten the same clips. Dale handed you a placebo with a cool name. Try that same trick at f2 on a moving subject at 85mm and see how many keepers you get.