I used CIRCAD'98 for a long long time, going directly to a PCB. Did quite complex projects with it, something clearly beyond its intended capabilities. The lack of proper polygon pour system, important for power designs, made me eventually go forward, but I used it for more than a decade. Basically, the polygon pour, while producing nice-looking result, would produce lines and arcs that can't be removed once put in place, so you need to run it on throw-away extra layer you can fully delete and repour every time you want to change something.
The free demo has the drill file / gerber export disabled, but I went so far to write my own drill / gerber export tools, by reverse-engineering the Circad's file format (which is super straightforward; I often modified my designs with a text editor and search&replace, to basically perform the same you do in altium by its "select similar objects" and filters).
I liked the fact that I could just draw some primitives (within the design I'm working on; not separate editor), then select them and group them as component, then copypaste this component to the next project. I worked by placing a footprint, then typing the net names directly in the pad properties, since it was trivially easy and quick to do so, to create the netlist on-the-go. Quicker than drawing a schematic, and forces you to name all nets sanely, without still being a burden! So I didn't do it through the schematic at all; I did functional schematics separately.
It has quite some similarity with the old Protel.
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