How to return extrude back to original What is the best way to recover the extrusion you have performed to your object?

Above is just an example, but should describe the case. And I'm not looking for answer like: draw a new sphere. Also &quot;undo (Ctrl+Z)&quot; is not an option (noticed the design error too late).
So far I have found two options:

I select all of those faces and delete. But then I get hole on my sphere. I can fill the cap by F or Alt+F, but the surface is not the same anymore.

Other option that comes to mind is lowering this close enough to the surface, and then using merge vertices. But then those two vertices on middle of those six faces are not meltdown to anywhere, and again surface does not look correct.
This is an even extrusion, no scaling. So..

Alt-select the ring of generated faces, X delete them
Hover - L select the isolated patch
With Snap set to 'Vertex', 'Active', the whole patch selected, and a convenient vertex made active, just G snap the patch back into place..
All verts selected, M merge &gt; By Distance.