Well, I believe you, people had the same reaction about my first proper build. I’ve had the game for a while, but I only really started playing a couple months before the wipe, not counting several attempts where I gave up in frustration because of network issues, until they smoothed out some of the issues for less-than-ideal internet plans.
The build I’m talking about, my little house on Elopor just prior to the wipe, took about 4 or 5 days, mostly spent gathering clay for bricks.
I don’t think it would be THAT much worse now. Maybe another day added, tops. Of course, plots felt a bit easier to get back then, so that might slow things down a bit further, but other than that… I legitimately don’t think it’s all that bad.
Now, that’s a medium sized build at best (400 plots or so), and your first picture was more of a megaproject. I honestly think that the developers envision that sort of thing as being more of a community effort than something that anyone can achieve easily by themselves. If everyone could build their own cities, all cities would feel empty. 