It took a machine-generated solution to the problem for me to realise.

I would reword that as:

It took building a machine-generated solution to the problem for me to realise.

There is definitely something about building code generators that gives you much more insight into a problem. I consider the time I've spent building such meta-tools to be about the most instructive time I've spent coding.

Thanks also for pointing out Yet Another Interesting CPAN Module I want to have a look at.