Watched a buddy do almost the same thing on his 182, he bonded all his wicks straight to the skin and swore it was fine for years. Then his avionics guy found the whole airframe acting like one big ground plane, and the static noise on his radios was a mess the whole time. Pulled the wicks off, checked the bases, and half of them were the isolated type that should never touch bare metal. He redid every one with the proper bonding strap to the airframe ground point and the noise cleared up on the next flight. Point is, the rule is you bond to whatever the wick base is designed for, not just to the nearest bare aluminum. Read the install sheet for the wick, it tells you if the base is isolated or not, and that saves you six years of doing it wrong.

The whole "trust the screen" thing is only half the story though (the screen won't lie to you, but it also won't tell you when the insert is getting dull or the material is harder than last batch). Your ears and hands catch stuff the readout never will, like a slight jump in the load meter or a sound that changes pitch halfway through a pass. So yeah, teach the codes, but get them on the handles early where they can feel a good cut versus a bad one before the part gets scrapped.