Well "what works" is good! I'm not saying that it isn't. If you are waiting for something that might take an hour clock time, who the heck cares if you get an immediate answer? And probably some burned Mips doesn't matter at all? file tail is a polling routine that adjusts its time to the next poll. Fine. Using inotify doesn't involve any polling and therefore a) it is "faster in clock time" and b) uses less Mips to monitor what you want.

What is "best" is very subjective and depends upon the application. I am not judging "right or wrong". I am merely suggesting other ways, which is what I think that you asked for? I don't think that there is a single "right way". There are multiple ways. Whatever achieves the objective is "good". I guess this depends upon what the objective is and how you measure it?