im not saying remove all existing code,

im saying you can have two pathways, ( decision which route to choose is almost zero cost )

first - when you boot correctly, you can save information that you booted correctly.

second - if you do not find information about safe boot, you go old route, quicksort route.

( YES. you can do that, in a way you do not have loops of boot process because you are reading boot is ok even if it is not. just dont be lazy like linux kernel developers were, when i was telling them this exact thing few years back. )

But why? You have a very manageable number of devices, O(nlogn) over that on a modern processor is absolutely zero time.