I wish it were only that simple for me! I am not fortunate enough to be able to afford software like Partmaker. I program our E32 Citizen by hand. You want to talk about the long way around? I can vouch that, yes, it can be done. No, you do not need to do it through a CAM program...BUT...how nice it would be to load my 3d model, select the tools for the operations, be able to swap operations, simulate the program, and not have many issues!!!!
To give you an example:
On the last job I just setup, it took 6 hours to write the program, 4 hours to tool up the machine, and then 4 more hours just to prove the program!!
To answer your question...Is it overkill? Maybe Delcam, (and all the other CAM software companies for that matter), does charge overkill prices for the software, but consider the time I could have saved on one job alone. Shoot, if I could afford to buy it, I could probably darn near pay for it in a year!
My $0.02.
Ciao