[kafkaesq]

Does it require some effort to actually break a compound in smaller parts once it became so common to be de facto a new word of its own?

No in general it's quite easy. You just have to pretend it's early latin before the innovation of spaces between words ;) And then there are semi-consistently applied rules about certain suffices (like -s, -er, -en + others) which somtimes go between the subwords to indicate that one of the in a declensional position. For example:

Volksempfänger = Empfänger (des) Volk(es) = "(radio) receiver of the people"

Forming compounds is a bit trickier; everyone "knows" the rules (for applying joining suffices) though they may not be able to articulate as to why -- the new compounds just pop out.