[akiselev]

I've got the complete opposite experience. Maybe the kind of stuff I work on is just different but that sounds like a lot of work that could have been avoided by cobbling together some reference designs and carefully reading PCB layout documentation.

With all the different reference designs, parts libraries, and open source projects available these days, spinning up a PCB design has never been faster and easier (I use Altium). My record for a nontrivial design is less than 12 hours from idea to fab+assembly order with an FPGA + Wifi referenced design grafted onto a gutted STM32F4discovery followed by ~30 hours troubleshooting the bringup and sending out a second revision. I don't think I've ever written and tested nontrivial firmware in that time frame.

Even in complex microprocessor boards where routing high speed signals (DDR3/4, MIPI2/3, etc) takes up 90% of the design time, the time spent faffing with BSPs and device drivers far outweighs design time.