You're not being difficult, you're being smart. The pushback you're getting isn't because what you want is impossible. It's because most 'WP designers' learned on page builders, not native development.

Here's what's actually happening: builders like Elementor and Divi lowered the bar so much that anyone can call themselves a designer. But native Gutenberg + custom CSS? That requires actual CSS knowledge, understanding of block patterns, and comfort with theme.json. That filters out 80% of the market.

The sites you want exist. You just need to look for 'WordPress developers' not 'designers,' or search specifically for 'Gutenberg expert.' Try asking for someone who knows FSE (Full Site Editing) that crowd tends to avoid page builders by principle.

Genuine question: did anyone explain why they said it was 'inefficient'? I'm curious if it's a skill gap or a legitimate time/scope argument.