Autodesk Inventor's sheet metal design tools will let you design things in sheet metal which are not makeable with standard machinery. It will show you the unbent flat form of the part, and allow for the metal thickness at the bends, but there may be no sequence of bending operations that works because the previously bent part gets in the way of the tools. eMachineShop understands the limitations of bending.
While definitely a good point (restrictive CAD keeps you out of trouble) the issue you have is that most companies want canonical CAD files living inside Solidworks, etc. and don't want to go back and forth. It's a lot of extra work, and people aren't switching to just using their CAD package because it's not feature complete like a commercial package.
Few non-trivial products use a single manufacturer over their lifetime, let alone for a single production run, so having your own CAD system is a liability not a competitive advantage. I don't see how neckbeards, location, and VC funding are relevant in the face of such a glaring oversight.