Hey, welcome to the forum, sorry it’s not under better circumstances.
A couple of things come to mind after reading your post:
- You’re not alone. Lots of people have expressed some doubt about the value of the premium design features. luckily it’s optional, unluckily it can be really handy when you need it. Your fellow owners here definitely hear you, and more than a few are nodding at their screen as we speak.
- Unfortunately, Glowforge staff doesn’t read the forum. They’re who needs to hear this from you! I’d say email support@glowforge.com with your concerns. If enough of us make some noise they may change things.
Other than that, I hope you find some use for the forum! Lots of us have put a great deal of effort into the content here, I’m sure you can find all kinds of design ideas and helpful hints. Since you’re new you might like this post, it’s full of useful links:
As for me, I hope you stick around and post pics of the things you make – I love to see new creativity here! Wish I could help more with the cost thing, but I will say that everything itdoes is also possible to do for free in a SVG editor called Inkscape. I use it for all my projects big and small. if you give it a shot and find that it’s hard to get started, feel free to ask here on the forum, so many of us use it that someone will be able to help almost with almost any question.