[analog31]

And then the designer up and quits, leaving you with a sketchy and gratuitously complex design that nobody can fathom.

A volume like 10k puts you in a dreaded "in between" zone. You're not making a one-off widget that a customer is willing to pay an unlimited amount for because it solves a unique problem. And it's not enough volume to make something that just rolls off an assembly line. All of the simplistic mental models for how to proceed, don't work.

I work in such an industry, making specialized equipment. Every component is an expensive buy-in. It's ridiculously hard to find cost savings every component is up against the same math. Then again the competition faces the same problem.