You certainly can avoid a lot of dead ends, but we're still talking about the span of at the very least multiple decades. And the next question is practicality

You certainly can avoid a lot of dead ends, but we're still talking about the span of at the very least multiple decades. And the next question is practicality. You can make a steam engine demonstrator from bronze. But bronze was expensive, and of varying quality. So your engine will necessarily be low-power, and too inefficient for practical use.