Varun's initial suggestion to clear the cache and restart the application is a common troubleshooting step, but it does not fully address the question of diagnosing and resolving Kafka pipeline lag without writing code. Additionally, the mention of editing the code contradicts the question's premise. Varun could improve by outlining a systematic approach to diagnosing the issue using monitoring tools and logs, as well as considering resource allocation and network latency, similar to the benchmark response.