Stein,
Again, I think you may be somewhat mixing up your commercial, do it once and deliver methodology, with the incremental development many homebuilders use for their schematics.
Visio I'm sure is a great sw package and has the advantages you mostly describe with an automated schematic machine. I am familiar and was an expert user of $30,000 schematic packages before I retired, and yes they are wonderful.
I also liked the giant plots I could get, but do somewhat disagree with the 'larger the better' paper size comment. Again, it's good for your commercial, deliver it all at once, methodology, but getting multiple Kinko copies of D and E size paper printouts rapidly gets expensive.
The larger paper requires more lines, so the automated moving and correcting is really needed. If you can work in B size sheets, each sheet can be a "subject area" and the way our planes are now usually wired these tend to be somewhat self contained. You might say this is a way of getting around the CAD 'line moving' problem, but I actually rate it as a feature.
At work we got away from lots of lines all over a sheet in the 90's and moved more to bus structures, applicable for computer stuff, but much less so for our plane schematics. The many vs. one large sheet question can be seen in the schematics published by the auto manufacturers. They can't seem to standardize and different manufactures use both the 'large sheet' and 'multiple sheet' methodologies.
YMMV, but following individual lines across a large sheet can make your finger get lost. Multiple sheets and a reference that "
EFIS PWR" goes to "
Power Distribution, Sheet 3" as a signal label can often be easier to follow.
Your example of adding a piece of equipment after the fact can easily be done by simply creating another sheet. Our interconnects seem to be getting easier as time goes on and more and more equipment is connected by serial digital buses. It may be that the new equipment just needs a new bus connection and audio in and out lines to the existing equipment.
You do end up with sheets with little on them, but it may be considered an advantage if you separate the sheets by physical location. This is my aft fuselage sheet -
It is 11 x 17 (before I saved it as a 4000 pixel gif) with 0.2 line spacing, but should be legible for editing and a quick view on letter size.
As far a CAD generated "bridge jumps", I'm confused, the industrial/commercial standards for them went away decades ago. A line crossing another line is just that, a line connection has a dot to show joining, and a crossing with a dot should not exist since dots can get lost in printing. Hence this standard I mentioned -
As far a SW costs go, I use TurboCAD at about $30 for an older version vs. Visio which I believe is around $300. I haven't bought AutoCAD for the same reason.
I don't like to disagree with you given all of the excellent RV panels/schematics you create, but I think your viewpoint may be sometimes from a more production viewpoint than from a homebuilder working on his own, a piece at a time.
PS, I made my own Dynon cables, but your Dynon EMS color coded sensor hook up harness is definitely an essential item to buy.
Even the EMS wire schematic sheet was easy to make with your colored wires. The connections tend to form into bundles going to their own sheets. Once a sheet is made, not much automated moving of blocks is usually required -
PPS Even Vans factory went away from large drawing sheets to a size much more manageable on your workbench for their newer model airplanes....