I mean doing it in a programmer's editor, as plain text, without drag and drop etc.
Really, do you think anyone could have written the HTML for Synthesis's postbit with Frontpage or Dreamweaver? I doubt it. And if they could have, it probably took them just as long if not longer than doing it in plain text. And of course, since you wern't specifically designing it for it's purpose, you have to adapt it. Then there is all of the extra bloat that editors tend to add. No matter how you look at it, it is far better to learn how to do it by hand.