This seems a false dichotomy to me. Surely the optimal solution would be to spend a few hours / days in the first week picking the textbook, then 51 weeks stud

This seems a false dichotomy to me. Surely the optimal solution would be to spend a few hours / days in the first week picking the textbook, then 51 weeks studying it, as opposed to literally picking the first one you see and studying it for 52 weeks.