Doesn't have to be though. You can go into Lightroom, apply some standard presets, maybe crop, see what autoexposure does and maybe tweak a bit, and maybe apply some effects preset, done. Maybe a couple minutes. (Yes, I sometimes spend more time but that's pretty much my good enough default workflow. Entering metadata and culling usually takes about as much time.)
I was mostly not that exacting when I was printing B&W either. The yearbook did use photos I shot for the paper but they didn't really want me printing because I just wasn't into the spending 4 hours on a print.
You are hardly "giving yourself over to your materials, framing, and exposure, and being delighted by the results even if they aren’t exactly what you expect."