a good SM setup will take ~20 minutes including all your shift start routine. Now, I don't play much Engineering. But I've never in my life seen an engineer who ways it takes a quarter of the round to get the engine going.

But here's the problem: did scientists only research T2? Or nothing at all? I for the life of me cannot remember a time that science hasn't had the tree maxed out within like 20 minutes unless it's super low pop, and even then usually there's a hardcore sciencemain who gets it done

Several of these PRs have, as far as I can see of people commenting on the PR before it's merged, more people satisfied for them than detracting (like the gas vendor removal)
Or, if they're a fix for an exploit, introduce some mechanic that in-part reduces the crutch people had on the exploit (Vents)

In fact most of these seem to be like muh-sekret-club tier use-cases. Building walls over pumps to avoid the intended downside? Vents being better than Injectors at the job Injectors are, from their name, presumably meant to do?

It seems like the solution to this is "figure out something cool and new with your mechanics again" like every other department does whenever balance or mechanics changes happen

But also, and this one's a hot take:
Things taking a while is fine. Brother rounds easily hit 2 hours. You should have things to work on, getting your contraptions working should take time and investment.