I think you just answered your first question...

There are days the fish will eat a Popper and days they want a Spook better. Then there are other days they won't hit a topwater at all. After the second fish "drove by" your plug but didn't take it, you should have been throwing another type of bait at em. My guess is that if you had thrown the Spook after the 2nd fish did the the drive by you would have had different results and you might be on here showing us a pic of your first Spook fish rather than asking why the fish kept missing your popper repeatedly.

Too many times we think we can MAKE the fish eat a lure. Let them tell you what they want. Every fish you catch should tell you how to catch the next one. I am guilty of this too. The guys that know when to make the adjustments are the ones that consistently catch em.

I can agree with that. Only problem is, I'm still learning to speak LMB, so it all sounds like bloop bloop bloop to me at the moment.

With regard to learning to speak LMB...

Have a rod rigged up with a weightless watermelon fluke to throw immediately at the fish when they miss you topwater. Throw it to the spot where they swirled and 70% of the time they will eat it.