Why didn’t Joseph retranslate the lost pages?

He says in the first-edition preface that he tried to recover them. He doesn’t say what he tried.

You distinguish what Joseph reported from what the record can establish about the search. The preface gives no basis for naming a method.

He could translate using a seer stone, so I assume he tried using it to locate the pages too.

Those are separate uses. The preface reports an effort to recover the pages and leaves the method unspecified.

D&C 10 explains that Joseph was told to use a different record because opponents could use altered wording against him. That’s the reason he gave.

You answer the question from the early documents. The instruction and the reported threat explain his decision within the account. Independent verification of alteration would require further evidence.

I’d focus on the fact that the replacement covered the same period. That seems enough to explain the choice.

The overlap explains how the book could proceed. The revelation also states why Joseph was told to avoid repeating the lost text. Answer both parts.

I would set aside that test entirely because the comparison never happened.

The missing comparison leaves us without a result. Your friend can still reasonably weigh the decision to avoid the test. Ask what each explanation would predict about that decision.

I agree a reliable comparison could have mattered. We can weigh his decision, but we can’t know from these documents how a second attempt would have turned out.

You take the proposed test seriously and distinguish the decision from a test result. That leaves room to discuss which explanation best fits the surviving records.