Give “Read More” precedence over excerpt() word count

Question

Here’s the hacky way I figured it out:

if ( preg_match( '/<!--more-->/', $post->post_content ) ) {
    $content = apply_filters( 'the_content', get_the_content( '' ) );
    echo ( $content );
} else {
    the_excerpt();
}

(Note that I have a separate “Read More” link after this snippet; if you’re wanting to use The Content’s default Read More link, remove the space from get_the_content();.