@maxcady ,
Like Omar already said, it is great that you find solutions like this yourself! And it’s definitely a valid way, because it gets you the result you want.
There are many cases like this and each has its own ‘easiest’ solution, so making this into a script will probably not be worth it.
In this specific case, for instance, you could select that Edge Loop and press F to fill in a Face, that you can then simply move along its Normal or Extrude. Delete the Face when ready.
