Mudguards

Pretty much par for the course, no? Bend and trim the stays, drill a hole in the front guard if the fork has a threaded boss beneath the crown. If you bought a bike without thinking about fitting mudguards, maybe rig up a bracket between the rear stays.

You only have to do it once.

My experience is different to the OP. I have a Ribble CGR AL, and some 45mm SKS guards (?thermoplastic or some such). Aside from shortening the stays with a hacksaw (which is probably de rigeur for guards) no fettling required, and they've been flawless. Probably took me less than an hour to fit front and rear.

Previously had a Boardman CX Comp (I know not gravel) that I fitted some M.Part guards to (forget which). Looking at the two bikes, I'm confident the M.Part ones would have required equally minimal fettling.

My wife has a Spesh Diverge that I fitted guards to with a slight bend to one stay but nothing else (after Spesh couldn't supply us with their custom guards).

Not sure which one of us is experiencing selection bias!

I built up a Boardman CX team the UCI 2x version into a Gravel spec do anything bike....one I can whack on the back of the Motorhome and go anywhere, town, road, off road, bikepacking and even mountain trails with a huge 528% gear range that they never thought of on the drawing board...lol... . My ride pals and I head out off road, National trails etc so I built one for fun....I decided to whack some mudguards on...and I use SKS Speedrockers...solid, quiet, don't budge,easy to wash the worst mud you can throw at them...they have been fantastic for 12 months now...I run them with 35's Gravelking SK or 33's Terrano MIx for mud...I have a customer I built one for on 40's under these mudguards....

Yeah, I've had this issue. Rather than retain the front rim brake mounting hole they insist on doing the plug it in to the bottom of the fork thing. It's a pain for running dyno lights too. And don't get me started on whether the rear seat stay bridge is (a) present and (b) oriented correctly.

Fortunately there are enlighted manufacturers out there (why, hello Fairlight) who pay attention to such practical matters. 

I fitted SKS Speedrockers to my Giant Revolt. Works a treat and super stable. I've added the rear extender for road duties as the native configuration is too short for group riding.

You need to cut the mudguard legs but this can be done with a good pair of cable cutters. It did take well over an hour to get everything perfect.

This is the first time in well over a decade of riding I have had a bike with front and rear mudguards and I love it.

I ordered my RIbble Endurance Ti with Ribble's own mudguards.  However, because of stock issues it came without them and they sent me them later.  I was a little miffed that their own mudguards supplied for their own bike needed drilling before they could be fitted.  But, to be fair, they had offered to pay for my LBS to fit them; and in the event I fitted them myself, so given my mechanical ineptitude (ask my LBS!) it can't have been that hard!

And, as TheBillder says, mudguards always need fettling anyway.

Mine - Ridley X Trail with SKS Longboards - needed one hole drilled in the front guard and use of an old bracket from a reflector to compensate for the lack of a seatstay bridge. And the quick release fasteners wouldn't fit.

But given that mudguards always need fettling when fitting (and often afterwards) I don't think it was too bad. I took my time and am pleased at the results.