This matches my experience as well. One unexpected benefit is that I learned a couple pieces of hardware inside and out because LLMs make so many mistakes. If I wouldn’t have used an LLM I wouldn’t have gone down all these rabbit holes based on incorrect info - I would have just read the docs and solved my use case but missed out on deeper understanding.

Just reinforces my biases that LLMs are currently garbage for anything new and complicated. But they are a great interactive note taker and brainstorming tool.