Overheard two guys at a coffee shop arguing about rulebook order

I was grabbing a latte near Portland last Saturday and these two were going back and forth about whether you should learn a board game by reading the rulebook front to back or just skimming the components list first. One guy said he always reads the setup section three times before touching anything, the other said he just dives in and looks up rules when he hits a wall. It got me thinking about how I teach games to my crew after work, because I usually do a quick 5 minute rundown and then we just play, fixing mistakes as we go. That works most of the time, but I had a game of Brass Birmingham fall apart because nobody understood the income phase until round 3, and that was rough. Do you guys have a method for learning new games that actually sticks, or do you just accept a messy first playthrough? Has anyone else found a middle ground that saves time without killing the fun?

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