I am home tonight but I was out and busy today, and I may be away from computer tomorrow and next day- but might not.
Waterfront helps me plan (and I was hoping too :) ) but of course would help creating directly on to the world when I build. But at least I can plan and test when I next get in he game. Sometimes playing around with dimensions and themes requires sandboxing anyways- at least till the buildable world is ready.
I think once I get a groove and with similar dimensions having 3-4 template builds and doing 1-3 variations of them. So they don't look too much a like but all fit in 7-10 shouldn't really be a problem.
I am definitely more confident with the residential lots- I don't want to worry about straying from the desired look of the stations. But usually with enough images and floor plans I can make a decent facsimile based on real builds. But this could take more time- since I am trying to balance a few things in the wiki too.