"Not quite at China prices" is something of an understatement. JLCPCB offer five 100mm*100mm 4-layer boards for $7. Not $7 each, $7 total for five boards. Shipping to Europe is $1.50.
If the whole Twitter -> X transition and DOGE has taught us anything, those costs don't magically disappear, they add up over time and get passed down as inflation. Are you really measuring an engineer's time properly? There is an implicit assumption that an engineers time is at 100% utilization which is never true. This mentality you described allows people to get sloppy with costs. At some point you need to do a form of Zero Based Budgeting.
