[I'm really annoyed that the first AppleCare tech to whom I spoke was so non-communicative and, in addition, left no notes for the next guy.
Having worked in a large corporate tech support environment (Microsoft) I could speculate the uncommunicative tech knew or guessed what was going on and stretched a point of corporate policy to get you up and running. The lack of documentation could easily have a CYA maneuver. I’m not saying that’s what it was, but that kind of thing does go on in large corporate environments.