During my first playthrough I eventually came to the conclusion that I'll never progress much further if i keep building every small item one by one. I do not have much time to play the game, so blueprints came in handy. Since then I have never looked back.
You're totally right though, there are many ways to play the game and they are all enjoyable. I bet there's even players roleplaying a nomadic, explorative playstyle.
I created stackable blueprints that include a specific type of building, for example constructors. They have an input and output on the ground and i can build them higher and higher as long as the belt is fast enough to push in and out the materials.
By doing that i normally have one or more towers for each component, similar to your mentioned microservice architecture.
On the ground i connect these towers to build the downstream components, essentially creating your mentioned microfactories out of the towers/microservices. Perhaps Manyfactories is a better name, as it's somewhere in-between micro and mono.
It's fast, scalable throughout the research tiers and pretty enough for my own standards.
Source? I only have anecdotal reference, but all the Russian people i know hate Putin for what he has done to their home country. Independent from where i know them, some via work, some via friends and family.
This sounds quite specific for something you had to experience multiple times. Hope the people are ok and you found something better to work for.