From a
_hobbyist_ perspective, I am not sure you're missing much. I've
designed
with FPGas as part of a job, and didn't enjoy it much. It is
very different from designing logic cirucitry the old-fashioned way for a
start.
Who wrote that?!? Did not enjoy it? I rarely wanted to do anything else
after having discovered FPGAs....!
For a one-off design, where size is no real issue, I much prefer to grab
a handful of TTL pacakges and start soldering.
Can be fun - as long as it's just a handful of logic. With FPGAs you can
do magic!