Used my old Cuisinart for two years after a bad flare up in my thumb, and I still called it homemade because I measured everything and shaped the loaves myself. The machine just does the part your hands can't handle right now, which is no different from using a stand mixer with a dough hook. The only folks who care about that stuff are the ones who don't have arthritis yet. Your wrist will thank you, and the bread tastes the same either way.

Man, I read a thing from an old Hughes Aircraft harness guy years ago and it stuck with me. He said the reason those old planes lasted is that the crimp spec was written by engineers who knew a bad crimp kills a plane, and the inspectors actually pulled test coupons. They didn't trust their eyes. They cut samples and looked at them under a scope. Half the guys I see rushing today have never once cut a crimp open to see what their tool is actually doing. You don't have to build museum stuff on a King Air, but a pull test and a sample cut take two minutes and tell you the truth. Fast and right aren't enemies if you set up the tool once and stop guessing.