The part about the old setup forcing you to think through every line before you put it down is where I kinda see it the other way. I learned on a board too and yeah you planned ahead because erasing sucked, but half that planning was just fear of wasting time, not real careful thinking. You'd get locked into a bad layout because redrawing the whole sheet felt too painful, so you'd just live with it. Now I can try three versions of a plan in an afternoon and actually pick the best one instead of the first one I could survive drawing.

Six minutes and nobody complained is cool and all, but does that actually mean the cut was better or just that folks don't speak up? I'd want to see how those tapers held up after a week or two before I call it a straight upgrade.

Knew a guy who ran a whole house with a powered stapler on its lowest setting and still lost two rooms to dropouts after a few months. He told me the staples felt loose going in, but the pressure point was still crushing the foam core where it crossed the wire. What I heard from an old cable tech is that the gun setting matters less than the staple type, you want the ones with the little plastic saddle over the top so the force spreads out instead of digging in. Tension wise, the cable should still slide a bit if you tug it, that's the sweet spot. Slack loops on both ends help too, lets the jacket move when temps change so it doesn't pull against the staple. Good call switching to hand squeeze, slow but you can feel when it's about to bite too hard.