JLC wrote...
....
What simpler formulas would be possible with the same cell reference on
each sheet?

Your original formula looked malformed. I'm assuming you want the value
of the first nonblank cell from a group of individual cells in
different worksheets. If so, you could put a list of the worksheet
names IN THE ORDER YOU WANT THEM SEARCHED in a range on another
worksheet and name it something like WSLST. If each of these worksheets
used cell B5 for the information you're checking, then you could find
the first nonblank value using an array formula like

=VLOOKUP("?*",T(INDIRECT("'"&WSLST&"'!B5")),1,0)

and if you wanted to change the order in which to search these
worksheets, all you'd need to do is change the order of the worksheet
names in WSLST, and the formulas could be left as-is.