The blessing and the curse of the Internet. A few years ago, I was getting new bicycle tires and fellow overly analytic bicycle nerds had built a machine to measure the rolling resistance and puncture resistance of each tire[0], so I of course I "had" to spend hours pouring over all the different options.

This was probably a more sensible use of my time than when I spent hours trying to determine which pedals I should get. Is there a reason to get low profile? Oh, this one is 20 grams lighter--oh, but some people report it breaking more than this other one.

To quote on of the best article titles of all time, reality has a surprising amount of detail.

[0] https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

That site is gold. I've had one that was a complete mystery, it all looked and felt perfect but still, it didn't work. I was tempted to toss it and replace it but the fact that it was a vintage Campagnolo made replacing it extremely expensive and I couldn't even find a proper replacement. So in the end I figured out what the problem was and ended up repairing it.