How big was the brisket ? Both I and friends have tried smoking smaller briskets (a few pounds) and it's a totally hair-trigger exercise where "dry and gnarly" is the natural state.

My first brisket (a full-sized flat+point) was awesome and people still talk about it occasionally. Everything since then has been considerably less awesome, although they were generally much smaller chunks of meat.

The "stalling" thing is apparently connective tissue transmogrifying into gelatin and other yummy things, and certainly helps, but the challenge AFAICS is that you have two parallel activities going on -- conversion of connective tissue and drying out of everything else.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8