What you're missing is that hardware documentation isn't the afterthought that it is in software. That hardware documentation is as much the product as the PCB - because without that documentation, the PCB is useless. And every time the board gets rev'd, so does the documentation (which is rare in software) because if it doesn't, then people can't take advantage of the rev.

It is true that so many of us in software don't RTFM, and I am guilty of that, but it's also true that the FM is often out of date, incomplete, doesn't carry the edge cases, and is often written by a reluctant author inexperienced in writing good copy.

Apart from that, 'go slow' is missing the point a bit. It's not the 'lack of turbo speed' that the mouse is creating problems from, it's the context switching. 'Go slow, steady, and thoughtful' is fine, but the less context switching you have, the more attention you can spend on your task.