St Paddy's Post-Mortem

St Patrick's Day.  Equated with a corned beef dinner?  Maybe, but not part of our tradition growing up.  My mother, being a farm girl of sorts, and a survivor by necessity, knew about the waste-not principle, knew that  beef,  on the verge of spoiling, could be rescued by the "corning" process.  So she was wary of preparing a dinner consisting of salvaged meat.  I never cared for it either, in my adult life, nor did my husband and most of our kids, though they were blissfully unaware of  the shady history behind  the corning of the beef.
   But times changed, with better refrigeration options, and corned beef has become almost a delicacy, or at least a featured and expected offering, so I have bowed to the modern tradition and usually cook a St. Patrick's Day dinner anyway, though nobody eats the cabbage, nor does anything with the leftover corned beef.
  This year I decided to not bother with the dinner, but an unexpected request, from a grandchild no less, had me rethink my decision and do the right thing.  A day late, but it was a Saturday, so all could attend.
   The problem is I'm not that familiar with the mystique of a proper cut of corned beef.  Sometimes I think I've got a handle on it, but I always forget by the next year.  So I'm documenting my findings here:  I bought 2 cuts.  They were not of the familiar brand, but the package was festooned with pictures of shamrocks so how could that not be a good thing.
          Package #1----"Premium Corned Beef Flat Thin Cut"   (I think that's a brisket.)  $3.47 a lb. for 2.375 lbs.=$8.24
          Package #2----"Premium Corned Beef Points" @$1.47 a lb. for 2.325 lbs.= $3.42
      I wanted to compare them, but think I muddied the effort because I cooked them using different methods. The attached instructions gave only 2 options, Slow Cooker and Oven Roasting.  I have a Slow Cooker stored somewhere, but didn't want to unearth it, figuring a slow cooker is the same method as stovetop boiling, just slower.  I'd never roasted a corned beef before, though have, several times,  placed the near-finished product  under the broiler, adding a glaze  to crisp it up a bit.
   I cooked Selection #1 the traditional way, boiled, only briefly under the broiler at the end.  I roasted Selection #2, figuring to sacrifice the cheaper cut if roasting was a bad idea.  The  meat was placed on a rack with water in the pan beneath.
   I tried to compare them.  At first I thought the cheaper cut, Points, was tastier, and maybe a little grainier, but at the end, it turned out that both ended up being quite tender and flavorful.  I didn't track who ate what, but a few diners anyway found the corned beef to be delicious.  I would guess that the Brisket won by a nose.