Fancypants structural drawings

So jumping back to June-ish, this is the kind of stuff we had to draw up to give to the Structural Engineer to give back to the Contractor to pull permits to re-do the front porch. I must say..this is all a big waste of money. I thought we'd be saving big bucks by doing these measurements and dimensions ourselvers. Hah.
$1,000 for the Engineer and $2,500 for the flat fee General Contractor ($2,500 more when done) to pull permits and act as a "constultant". The Engineer produced some super-fancy "plans" that looked more professional than my drawings of course.
All to avoid taking and possibly failing a homeowners test by the city. Heck, we always worked on the weekends and code enforcement never said anything anyway...but then again, it may be because we had the permits on the front door.
I will say that the city wasn't too eager about giving out a permit to a young couple of do-it-yourselfers. If you mention the word "structural", forget it. Always say the word "repairs".

Totals: Permits, Engineers, and General Contractor: $3,700
Materials, labor to redo front porch roof and deck: $2,300

Okay, so some of the plans and the permit can be used to redo the whole house, but still.