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.
Try them again, as I suspect you experience is with very old FPGA families . They have
come a long way.
For a one-off design, where size is no real issue, I
much prefer to grab a handful of TTL pacakges and start soldering.
That will severely and unnecessessary limit both design size and speed.
Jos