Maybe it's worth to consider that G3 is more than enough for PvE, and G4 or 2-3 rolls at G5 doesn't really need all that much of high level material gathering. Taking everything to full circles at G5 is really somewhat of a waste of time and materials for PvE..
Yes, and no.
For anybody building a ship, it's definitely worth looking at the difference between G3/4 and G5 and then asking whether G5 is absolutely necessary.
A 2D overcharged gimballed beam, for example, has 19.3 DPS with G3 and 21.9 DPS with G5.
The extra 2 DPS shouldn't
really be the difference between life or death, especially in PvE.
The problem is, gradual, incremental, modifications often aren't efficient with the current system.
You build a ship with, say, G3 overcharged lasers
and you fit (and modify) a PP and PDist to suit them.
You collect a bunch of extra mat's and decide to upgrade some of those lasers to G4... and now you find that you need a better PP/PDist to run them, so all the mat's you spent engineering the PP/PDist are wasted.
Conversely, maybe you start with G3 Efficient lasers, and a suitable PP/Pdist.
You upgrade those lasers to G5 Efficient and find you can make use of a
smaller PP/PDist so, again, those modules (and the mat's you've spent on mat's for them) go in the skip.
I guess it's not the end of the world but when you've built dozens (if not hundreds) of ships, it becomes irritating to think about all the time, effort and mat's you've wasted on "intermediate" upgrades which became redundant and got binned... so you start using things like EDshipyard or Coriolis.io to plan your builds and then you start wandering around with a huge shopping-list of mat's required to create a G5 ship out of the box.
Simplest solution would probably be if engineers offered some kind "refund" on mat's, which'd encourage players to build things now and modify those builds later... without having to worry (as much) about all the time, effort and mat's they wasted on upgrades that have been superceded.
Honestly, if they wanted to do it properly, I'd like to see FDev develop scavenging as a worthwhile activity in ED.
You enter a system, do your scans, you see various POIs (in space
and on planets) which might contain ship wreckage.
Alternatively, maybe you can
create some wreckage with a bit of pew-pew.
You have an advanced scanner (utility slot) which allows you to examine modules within the wreckage.
You target a module, twiddle some things (mini game) to disconnect the module from the wreckage, initiate a scavenging operation (different sized scavenging modules allow you to scavenge bigger things) and you'd collect the module and it'd appear in your cargo hold (if it'll fit).
In space, the scavenging operation would involve your ship going into "autopilot", moving into position near the wreckage, there'd be some noises and it'd be in your hold.
On a surface, you'd dismiss your ship, initiate the scavenging operation, your ship would re-appear, hover above the wreckage, there'd be noises and bright lights (conveniently hiding the exact operation) and, again, the module would be in your hold.
With the scavenging done, you head to a station where you can have the module fitted to your ship
or you can take it to an engineer who can repair/service it using far less mat's than it'd take to engineer a similar module from scratch.