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I don't know how expensive is the stuff you were making but if it was just about cutting metal it can't be that expensive. Isn't testing samples the 101 of engineering or have we gone 100% trusting CAD now? It looks to me that there are so many things that can go wrong in real life like deformations because of temperature, different calibrations on different models of machine, different composition of the material used, etc...

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Metal isn't that expensive I guess but still, several hundred dollars and a turnaround time increase of a week+ minimum isn't always on the cards for every project. Sure, if I had unlimited time and budget, I'd physically prototype and field test everything. Client demands tend to take precedence. Part of being a good engineer is balancing those concerns, learning which parts of the design and manufacturing process can be trusted implicitly and which assumptions must be rigorously tested - suffice to say I've been a lot more stringent about sheet metal design in the years since.

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