If you anticipated on this then going straight to PCB isn’t for you. In fact, the anticipation of ending up with half a dozen unsuccessful attempts clearly spells out that there must be a lot of uncertainty in the design. Possibly due to the fact that it might be a large-scale project, or just a whole heap of research and development that’s required.

Consider this scenario:
You design say 5 new projects every month. On average, 20 discrete logic IC’s, Z80 microcontroller, 50 passive components to boot…

Now, in the real-World implementation phase you have 1 of 2 choices.

A) Employ someone to prototype it. Skilled person required. Might take possibly a week to Vero-board it.

B) Double check, TRIPPLE check your work and go straight to PCB.
Board comes back from the manufacture, fill it, solder it, test it and you’re done. Few hours work. Possibility you might get it the first time? For someone who really knows their stuff, yes I believe so.

Tooling fee is about $100. Of course though, this arrangement would only work if your design used existing technology. Otherwise there would be too much guess work involved and I would agree with your argument entirely.

Best Regards,
Trent Jackson