> It seems it's easier for people to only discuss the important stuff when presented as an actual implementation.

LLMs help a lot here, create two prototypes with both designs, compare them together :) Could even evaluate how ergonomic some future potential change is, to see how it holds up in practice.

I used to use pen and paper to essentially do the same, minus having real code and instead just talking concepts, but it does suffer from the issue that some need to be confronted with code in front of them to visualize things better for themselves.