It probably is… and if that’s the case its NOT going to directly cause it to jump timing 3 teeth, and magically make it stick in that position and still turn over fine.
I find it hard to believe first off, that something other than a failed tensioner could somehow let a new enough belt “skip 3 teeth” and then settle into that new position and still be tight enough to turn over well enough to do a comp test and the other crap they did to troubleshoot this. If some random bolt fell out and got sucked into the timing belt/gears and dislodged it enough to skip teeth before it flung out, (more likely scenario) then I would want to see the bolt, and the cam gears UP CLOSE OR IN MY HANDS to see where they were mangled, chipped, bent, or any other evidence that they were mushed together at one point in time.
If I were in Darryls shoes, and the car was in my hands… the ONLY way I am covering a damn thing here is if I had the failed parts in my own 2 hands so I could do exactly the above.