I feel like a retard

I posted a couple of pics of nail in the photo critique forum a little bit ago and got some real good feedback. Found out a pretty good flaw in one of them, so I thought I'd go back and re shoot. Found some time yesterday (or the day before, can't remember) and took a bunch more pictures. I got the focus better on the subject, but not right. So, I checked the exif info and found that I shot them all at f2.5, a little too shallow dof. Knowing that that was part of my problem on the first shoot, I didn't have the sense to try f3.5 or f4 or something.. For that, I feel retarded. Hey, they say third time is the charm :)!