8 hours is an oversimplification that doesn't count things like the automated preliminary searches performed elsewhere. Boiling down the invention to its basic elements, determining the delta, then finding prior art is a science.
> he also has a 95% success rate, with rarely more than two back-and-forth iterations
Just to be clear, this is actually 2 distinct data points:
1) 95% success rate
2) rarely > 2 rounds
First on your #2: any software patent[1] that was obtained in the last ~10 years AND was granted with <= 2 rounds is either:
a) truly innovative and from out of left-field (READ: extremely rare)
b) the original Claims were very narrow
c) the Claims were significantly narrowed during prosecution
Now combine this with your #1 and what we can likely ascertain is that your "patent-writing-guru-for-hire" either doesn't try to get a decent patent for his clients, doesn't know what he's doing, or allows his customer to dictate that time-to-completion outweighs quality.
When you write code, do you get credit for how fast you can get the thing compiled and out the door - or do you take pride in the end result is not only to spec AND well thought out AND thoroughly QA'd AND provides advantages in running it? Yet, with "95% success rate" and "<= 2 compiles" is basically asking your "patent-writing-guru-for-hire" to sacrifice quality for speed in getting the job done. Make no mistake, the english words used in patent Claims is as serious and deliberate as the writing of any code - a wrong placement of a comma, period, semi-colon, choice of words, or ordering is on the same level as a misplaced bracket, for-loop, choice of data structure, etc... At some point, they'll likely come to bite.
Take coding as analogy - anyone can write code that compiles AND then claim he's got 95% success rate at compiling - but the question is whether the end result is worth the time, effort, and expense spent. Just as there is a justification for top coders to be paid upwards of $150k/yr despite the existence of $5k/yr alternatives: QUALITY.
If you are a startup with real money poured into true R&D (e.g. where many trials and experiments and dead-ends were required to achieve the innovation) that can then be easily duplicated and you determine that you need solid protection - then investors demand you to get some defensible attribute - patents offer this. I suggest you simply won't get that with someone who claims a 95% success rate in <= 2 iterations. Impossible.
If you still don't believe me, then give me your patent number and I'll detail you some simple workarounds that competitors can (and will if need be) use to completely avoid your patent - aka workaround.
[1] technically, there is no such thing as a software patent
You are assuming that ecommerce as it exists today would have happened without RSA (or DH). Maybe someone else would have created it, maybe not. Maybe someone else would have created something else to facilitate ecommerce, maybe not. Maybe we would never have created it and instead relied on some cumbersome form of symmetric cryptography (yuck). At the very minimum, ecommerce would have been delayed.
We need to ENCOURAGE investment into innovations. Without patents, investors hesitate investing into costly R&D which can be easily copied once seen.
Innovations of the 70's like asymmetric cryptography led us to Internet ecommerce which have led to the flourishing world of online startups which we today take for granted. It's all connected.
There are workarounds to just about every way of doing something. The question is how feasible and practical the workaround is.