Chose the shovel over the auger for a fence job, my back is still mad

Back in 2019 my neighbor and I split the cost of a post hole auger for a 40 post fence line. I'd used one before on a rental and it dug like a dream, but the day we got it, the ground was pure clay and half a foot of rain fell overnight. The auger just spun and polished the mud into a skating rink. I pulled the ripcord on that plan and grabbed my old round point shovel, the one with the fiberglass handle I've had since 2003. Three days of digging by hand, but every hole was clean and true, and we set all the posts in concrete on schedule. The auger still sits in my shed, and every time I walk past it, I think about how the simple tool won that round. Anyone else picked the low tech route out of stubbornness and gotten a better result than the fancy gear?