Autodesk inventor Fusion free

I downloaded the trial version of Viacad 2D/3D. So far seems very intuitive.

About The CAD export retopo. I think the process will be a good thing to learn and maybe during that time it would give me a better idea of when it would be beneficial.

Go for it, yes. It will be a good learning experience.

Just for fun, I made a copy of the model you posted a pic of in NVIL. I did have to guess the dimensions, and got a bit carried away adding circular fillets.

Snap-shot from NVIL:-
 

Very nice and Clean model Steve.
I did not have any  dimensions that I used. The image I posted was just basically a bit of playing around.
You got very close in nvil.