Hi Kovid - as they say 'been there done that', I have no regrets that those days are long over. It must be harder these days given the myriad of 3rd party components you guys employ.
I recall the first PC project I was contracted to run, apart from the no-frills K&R library that came with the C compiler, it used one for CUI and another for B-tree handling. And the programmers I inherited used edlin and... Word
Hey it was the early 1980's, and my customer was that large Asian bank that's now HQ'd in the Casino Precinct of The City!
BR