Most painful rebuilds come from rushing scale before you understand flow, comfort, and the practical distance between your most-used systems.
Mistake one: decorating before routing
A route should earn its decorations. If you build dense detail into a path that later needs to move, you create twice the work for yourself.
Mistake two: over-specializing too early
Tiny zones for every niche purpose look efficient on paper but often make the island feel fragmented. Let districts do more than one job until the larger plan reveals itself.
Mistake three: ignoring maintenance travel
An island can look complete while still being annoying to live in. Test how often you revisit a location and what you normally carry there. Repeated travel friction is usually the first sign a rebuild is coming.