Apple Care can be very unreliable - How my AirPods experienced a revival despite being pronounced beyond repair by Apple Care

On Jan 8th, I visited Apple Store in Union Square San Francisco and enrolled my airpod to be checked as when I was making the calls, my audio was not going but I could listen to the person on other side. I was put in the queue and there was waiting time of about 30 mins. I stepped out and walked around the China Town which is very close to the Apple Store in Union Square. 

I received a message that I am ready to be attended at the Tech Support counter of the Apple Store. I headed back, explained the problem. Tech-support person takes my airpods with case inside the lab and ran tests. He came out after few minutes and tells me that hardware of the airpods is damaged & can't be repaired. I asked if the hardware part can be replaced and how much will it cost. He mentioned that I need to get the hardware replaced in both the airbuds and one costs $60. So he suggested to rather buy a new pair of Airpods. 

I stepped out and decided not to buy at that moment. I had an extra pair of Jabra Earods at home. 

Fast forward to 27th Feb - I charged completely discharged airpods to prepare for my walk when I listen to podcasts. Airpods were continuously showing white light. Now I made another attempt to debug and one simple thing worked for me. 

- Opened the airpod cover.

- Removed one of the airbuds from the case.

- Light turned green and then I connected to iPhone.

- Made a call to a friend and everything worked fine. 

Now I wonder about how can I ever rely on Apple Tech support words. They had declared these airpods almost dead but they are working fine. This is so disappointing and specially when it's about Apple.