When and how not to inlet a stock is important. Never use a dull tool. You have more control over a razor sharp tool than you ever will with a dull tool. Never work when you are tired or not in the mood. Concentration is needed every second. Never work in less than great light. Never work when you do not have complete control over both the blank and the tool that you are using. Pros may be able to work with out thinking about what their next cut will do but I never can. Think in advance instead of figuring out what when wrong later.
I save everything when doing a stock job. All the trimmed ends, all the cutoffs, the shavings and even the sanding dust. You never know when you will find a void or screwup a minor area and need just the right piece of wood to fix the problem.
I found a nail in one blank that was almost finished when it broke through the final sanding stage. It took me several hours to remove the nail and make a patch for the area. After three more hours of work the repair became invisible. Even knowing where to look I could not see any repair. Luck was with me, but only because I had every scrap of wood to work with. I went over about a dozen possible candidates before I choose one. Having wood to work with is priceless. You can always throw it out later but it is hard to get it back or find the exactly right match from another blank. I used glue and compressed the fibers a little extra to have just a slight amount of wood to raise later to get the finish surface exactly right.
Glass bed along the side of an inlet job just looks like a fast repair job on a rough inlet job. Good repairs take a lot of time. I never see where tinting makes the seam go away. Some of the broken stock repairs, that I have seen, are almost impossible to believe that the stock was broken and some still look like the stock is broken.
