It doesn't matter what area of life we're talking about. I've proven this to myself numerous times. Whatever idea I come up with right from the start is usually the one I end up circling back to, even after going through countless changes and attempts to improve the original.
You are probably right. But, like I always say in the sales/marketing world, there are no ways to actually prove that you eventually made the correct decision. There are no do-overs, no instant replays, no way to know how going in another direction would have ended up, etc. You go with what you think is best and don't look back.
This is what I kind of figured out for myself: My initial idea usually comes from pure intuition and a clear understanding of the core goal. The countless changes that follow are often just my inner critic creating noise. I'm involved with someone else's business now (related to sales) and I can clearly see this concept being applicable. Looking at their old numbers, their sales were way higher back then. But over time, they created a lot of "noise." They made various "improvements" driven by the owner's insecurities or a desire for a competitive edge, but that noise has snowballed and their sales are now lower. I'm not in a capacity to point it out, but it's fascinating to watch because I understand that their original idea was amazing and I can clearly see where they went wrong.
I have another story about the "noise" you describe above. My whole career has been getting involved with technical entrepreneurs who have bleeding edge technology solutions to offer and putting in place the sales/marketing engine to launch them into various markets. Most of these tech entrepreneurs had invented a better mousetrap and, therefore, believed that they had the answer to most, if not all, of their business issues. Part of my job has always been to show them that they still have much to learn, especially in nontechnical aspects of their business. However, a few years ago, I got involved with yet another genius tech entrepreneur, but he had a unique twist: he was actively looking for and taking advice (from me, from other managers, colleagues, peers, etc.) I was amazed and actually began thinking that this was a super power of his, as far as tech entrepreneurs go. And that was true for a while. We grew at an amazing pace with no end in sight. But then, he started looking for more and more advice and started getting really bad advice that led to more bad advice that led to a big downturn in business. It turned out that his super power had run into its own kryptonite.