Oh, I'm certain he grew into a more mature understanding of having been in the wrong for blindly following his superior, & that reshaped his attitudes about it. Even Pressman admits that much.
I'll agree the initial inclination of taking the bigger prestige job on Enterprise over his own ship might have been a solid move at 1st, especially if you think you might still need some more learning, but I never bought the whole waiting out Picard thing too much. I'll admit it may have been part of his initial intention, but based on what I'll never know.
Why he'd think having no actual time in rank, captain experience would ever land him the flagship is beyond me. That's some hubris. Even Picard didn't get that. He spent 22 years captaining a rundown Constitution-class before they wanted him for that fancy new Galaxy-class ship, which he probably spent some time jockeying himself into position to get as well
He served as Picard's XO on 2 different Enterprises from 2364 to 2379, before getting the Titan. That's more like 16 years, from age 29 to 45. In 2364, he turned down the Drake (A light cruiser, like the Saber-class or Voyager's Intrepid-class). In 2365, he turned down the Renaissance-Class Aries, & then in 2366 he's offered the Excelsior-class Melbourne, which is a seriously incredible, albeit older model ship than the Galaxy.
I'm not going to judge whether his decision was a good one as a person, but as an officer... not the best career moves imho
