I've been playing piano for 5 months and have been having tremendous success (it helps that I've played clarinet for years and can read music).
By the time I can play a Level 4 piece from start to finish (albeit with a lot of rough edges to work on), I will have memorized the notes and the sheet music is really just there for reference and some help remembering dynamics. Takes maybe 30 hours of practice over a month to get to this point.
Is there anything wrong with this? I seem to be growing as a pianist. I am enjoying myself. I just worry that I'm tricking myself and am "brute forcing" the piece and not actually developing generalizable skills.