Not really. There's plenty of routes that never go near a watched precursor. So you take a hit on yield compared to starting with safrole, you also don't have all the local DEA agents show up to deliver your heavily watched precursor.
Amp from benzaldehyde isn't "doable with practice," if anything it's easier than extracting pseudoephedrine and reducing it. Run a Knoevengal in the microwave over silica with nitroethane as solvent, filter and rinse the silica beads and strip the solvent and reduce the nitrostyrene. I'd bet it's much faster than the pseudo reduction as well.
Most PEAs and simple tryptamines are pretty easy if you have some lab experience and are willing to put some time into study.