The only reason creating custom servers is a "life sentence" to your room, is because the amount of work it takes to see your own vision on this primitive... engine... no, better yet, lets stop calling it that.. it's an emulator, and that's the exact problem! The software was never intended to be an "engine" it was always intended to be an emulator... this shaped it completely, on it's code choices, it's decisions for moving forward or not, everything, literally every decision made was based in some way or another, on the premise, that this was always intended to be an emulator.
I can go on and on and list every single individual way the "engine" its self has caused such limitations.. but if you are a custom server creator, you already experienced it! You know what issues you fight on a daily basis, weekly basis... you know why it takes sooooo long to be able to see a single system actually get from your head to fully functional in game... and THEN, you still need to add all the content for that system.....
All I can say is that, man... if only someone who suffered these problems had created a server with a goal of making the server into an actual custom engine rather than an emulator... that would surely speed up system and content creation immensely... wouldn't it? Hmm... if we could only find a developer out there dedicated to such a cause... or an engine built for such a purpose...
At topic, I think it's absolutely worth building an server especially in today's age, I just think it's about choosing the right software for the right reasons is all.