Board swap vs. chip level repair, which one do you actually trust?

My buddy who repairs phones for a living kept telling me to stop wasting time with chip level work on my PS4 HDMI port and just buy a donor board from eBay for 40 bucks. I mean, he swore it was faster and more reliable, so I finally tried it. The donor board worked for about 3 weeks, then the GPU started artifacting hard, turns out that board had its own hidden issues from whatever console it was pulled from. Meanwhile, I've done two HDMI port replacements with a hot air station and a multimeter, and both are still running fine after 6 months. So now I'm wondering, is the board swap advice just lazy shortcuts that pass the problem along, or did I get lucky twice and chip level repairs are actually a waste of my Saturdays? Has anyone else had a donor board come back to bite them, or am I crazy for trusting my own soldering over a professional's advice?