Long story short, I upgraded from Catalina to Monterey 12.5.1 (the emergency new version due to a security leak issue). It was a disaster. Once installed, I could no longer connect to the apple ID server (known problem with 12.5.1) , no access to icloud or app store. I must have tried 50 solutions from googling this known issue over the next 48 hours, and decided to revert to Catalina because I have to work. Reminded me of my many years using Windows. I will try again when the next Monterey version comes out.
During the Monterey installation process, I quit after the upgrade download and used to Monterey Installer on my primary drive to create USB installer keys using the well known Terminal command to do so.
My question is whether my Monterey USB installers are generic or version 12.5.1 specific and I should make new ones next time I upgrade to Monterey to avoid the 12.5.1 bug.
I would also be curious to know if the recovery drive after a Monterey upgrade is version specific.
Both of those articles seem like generic excuses to provide a standard troubleshooting process, without any actual details from the users in question or links to the original reports.
Obviously, you had trouble, so something was happening, but I’m hesitant to lay it at the feet of macOS 12.5.1 without more reports. The only similar thing mentioned in our comments was this post, which was related to moving a lot of stuff that would normally be on the boot volume.