Actually eye-balling works great, if you know what you are doing. Using recipes when flour brands and types, humidity, ovens, yeast, and ambient temperature are all over the place means that you pretty much have to adapt recipes to your context. It's not optional. Most recipes try to be idiot proof by managing risk for novice users. E.g. a 65% hydration dough is going to be easier to handle; packs of yeast come in pre-measured packs, etc. A real baker would use higher hydrations, not be using dried yeast, and generally work in large batches. Batch size matters because it's easier to nail the ratios and does not require gram level precision.
Especially proofing times in recipes are in my view complete horse shit because it depends on so many variables beyond your control that any time unit would probably have a very high margin of error. Making bread in the summer and in the winter with the same recipes is guaranteed to have very different outcomes unless you adapt. Over proofing is a thing. So, is under proofing. If you have a sourdough starter, it can be in a barely alive state or in a hyper active state. It's going to affect what it does to dough and how fast it does it. Slow is actually good because time == flavor. Put your dough in the fridge to build more flavor.
The reason scales and exact ratios are nice is that they provide repeatability of the same context; or at least some level of control over it. So if, you've baked a few breads the same way, you can start tweaking a few things. Add a bit more water. Proof a bit shorter/longer, etc. People talk a lot about hydration levels of their doughs. But if you are adding a 150 grams of some sourdough starter with unknown hydration, you are going to mess up the hydration percentage of your perfectly measured ingredients.
When you've done this a couple of times, you develop a sense of what the dough is supposed to feel like and ways to correct if it doesn't feel right. I did not actually use scales until half a year ago. I use them a lot now because it helps me nail things like hydration percentages and salt levels with less guesswork but I use measurements as a starting point and adapt by eyeballing.
I was getting fine results just eyeballing it. Shake in half a pack of flour, that would be about half a kilo. Pinch of salt (most recipes suggest 1.8% by weight), add some starter and about two thirds of a pint of water (I used an actual pint glass) and add water/flour until it feels right. Don't over think it. 60% hydration breads are going to be a bit dense but fine if you knead them well. 85% hydration levels are going to be a sticky mess and a PITA to handle. You need skills to handle that and an understanding of what you are doing. But if you do, the results can be spectacular. I rarely go over 70-75%.