As a beginner, I find autorouting entirely unnecessary for the level of complexity I work with. Routing is pretty much the simplest part of the process to understand and somewhere between a fun puzzle and a tedious but simple chore depending on the specific design. I'm pretty sure there used to be a very popular mobile game that, while visually completely different, had the exact kind of "mechanics" as manually placing traces on a PCB does.
What would be helpful, however, are some better checking tools. Some mistakes, like running a trace right through the bottom side of a through-hole and creating a short that wasn't there on the schematic, seem very easy to detect and warn the user about before they end up spending hours cutting traces and running bodge wires.
What would be helpful, however, are some better checking tools. Some mistakes, like running a trace right through the bottom side of a through-hole and creating a short that wasn't there on the schematic, seem very easy to detect and warn the user about before they end up spending hours cutting traces and running bodge wires.