I am not a big believer in letting sit in a cooler for hours.
I added the three hours of FTC in order to account for the uncertainty of cooking time, I did not mean it to be it to be procedural.
No direct knock on you. In fact, I read it so fast I didn't even notice that was in your post. That is a good approach if you are done early and have no other method to keep the food hot.
It may also be a good approach for competition cooking too. I don't know. I don't competition cook. Over the 20 or so years I have been doing this, I have found the less work I have to do related to a cook the better and in the majority of the cases I couldn't tell a difference in the taste of the food.
I quit doing the following:
Applying rub and letting sit in fridge overnight
Putting in foil or some other covering and putting in cooler to let rest before slicing or pulling
Applying "glue" before rub (only tried this a few times)
Starting low for smoke and changing temp setting during the cook to higher temps
Spritzing
Applying a rub - sometimes I don't use one nowadays
Thawing food before cooking - sometimes I just throw on the smoker frozen
Etc