Holy cow, this blew up! Before I wade through with replies, I greatly appreciate the honest discourse today.
The machine’s movements are repeatable, since it’s all code, but the work to arrange the spars/ribs and the LR in the right place to attempt the cuts was more than seemed necessary, given the type of saw we have here and the ease of just lining everything up and making a quick rip to open up the slots exactly the same.
Yes, there’s some degree of frustration, but I am used to banging my head against a problem as I work towards a solution (thanks to a job in tech). Text is very limiting in terms of conveying emotion and context, but I promise I’m not raging or close to quitting in any of my posts.
The hiccups and mistakes and random failures are all part of the learning process. I went through it with 3D printing, too. There was a wealth of experience and knowledge online as I built, upgraded, and tuned my printer, and now it’s in great shape after plenty of time and effort and failures.
This is 100% understood.
Have I bit off a lot with this table? Yep. Do I regret it? Nope. I live with another engineer, so of course we decided to over-engineer this thing. We live for chasing zeros! 
Again, it’s been a little frustrating at times, but I’m nowhere near quitting CNC because of it.
n = 1 experience: I don’t feel like there’s pressure here on the forums to add on lots of extras to the process, or jump into complicated table projects right away. If anything, as you said, it could be difficult for newcomers to distinguish what is entry-level vs. more advanced if it’s not stated explicitly.
As for myself, I did add extras because that’s where my muse has guided me. I chose @DougJoseph’s table after reading a bunch of forum posts about table options and decided it would best suit my needs and interests. I agree that it would have been easier to make a “janky” table.
Exactly this. 
And this is just one of the reasons you are awesome. Another is the level of help you give the rest of us when we have questions or encounter stumbling blocks. So thank you for all of that!
No sarcasm in any of that. Love this place, and I’m loving the CNC journey so far.