Simplify, simplify, simplify. Reduce the complexity until you are back to the basics. Stay out of the rabbit holes, because you're gonna end back up on the outside anyway, and you may also end up regretting some of the time diverted from getting back to simplicity. I'm 70, and I could sure use some of that time back; but it ain't comin' back.
I tried everything I could afford to try, and I thank my stars that I couldn't afford that much, because the excursion brought me back to the starting point, and the multiplicity of diversions I followed only postponed the inevitable.
Yes, all those special tips and tricks work. Taken together they do, however, often tend to cancel each other out. So the whole is indeed the sum of the parts, but some of those parts are not compatible and subtract from each other.
Do; develop your own skills at hitting what you aim at. I recommend the .22lr; early, often, and in depth. Shoot until it gets boring, then shoot some more. You can't learn how to shoot better by not shooting more.
Then do the basics of accurizing, Bed the rifle, improve the trigger, get clear optics, learn to handload, and then learn how to develop loads and refine them. Keep at this until the improvement plateaus. Then buy a really good barrel and start all over again with the load development. Pamper the rifle, but drive yourself to the limits of shooting under every condition you can manage. Become that guy who owns one gun and can shoot it anywhere, anytime, at any target. Missing is not a fatal flaw, it's what you do along the road to not missing. Let throat preservation become a mantra.
Some of you will be able to afford the supahdoopah goodies, and by all means avail yourselves of them. But recognize that money will not buy your way into the X-Ring. Without the underlying requisite skills you could end up wasting a lot of money. The only thing a cheap gun can do that an expensive one can't is let you down. Oh, wait... No matter what your equipment costs, learn it well enough to understand how far you can trust it. Fix whjat you can't trust, but be sure it's broken first.
I get beaten all the time. I don't care, because I honestly believe that my most formidable opponent is myself. I regret beating myself, but I don't resent it; because that is the hard lesson that drives home the knowledge.
Greg
PS, Silly me. I forgot to recommend Frank's training videos and articles. That was a mistake.