I've just started my vacation, so I'm able to spend more time on this than I normally can.

Also, the weather is a bit crap, so there's a good excuse.
Wondering if we "lose" points if we get a PCB fabbed rather than making it ourselves., that that itm atters too much. I'm using 0.5mm pitch SMD stuff though, which is absolutely impossible to home etch, in my experience. The couple times I tried, bodge wires everywhere to make up for the traces and pads the acid ate through because the toner wasn't thick enough.