I've been brewing for a couple of years now, and I'm brewing all grain BIAB. I started with Mr. Beer after my wife got me a kit one year, (I suspect plenty of brewers started out that way).
I switched because I suspected that the LME was giving all my beers the same taste with very little difference regardless of the style.
So I upgraded to BIAB and upgraded some of my equipment.... I got an induction plate, a big SS pot, bottling wand, hop bag, auto siphon and a Hellfire burner. I had a hydrometer and scale from before. I still use the MB fementer kegs and bottles, as they serve the purpose perfectly fine.
I have brewed many different recipes and made my own and never have they turned out poorly... only one am I not too impressed with (the latest that tastes strange and I'm not too sure why-perhaps it was the first time I used liquid yeast?). My results are very good and I attribute that to proper sanitizing and being overly cautious with it.
You can say I'm lazy.... that's ok, I sorta am...
I sorta am, too. However, my early batches with kits and my LME-only batches were a lot less work than my current BIAB setup. If I was REALLY lazy I would still be doing extract. In fact if I was SUPER DUPER lazy I would just have my beer delivered with the groceries, already in bottles. But I appreciate the lower cost of my BIAB beer, and the more multidimensional aspect of method and final product. Lucky for me, I like stout and porter type brews more than lagers, and room temp fermented ales are a lot less work than lagers, and a lot less touchy. My brews are low hop, high grav without a lot of expensive ingredients. Lately I have been mostly saving yeast and I only buy a pack of dry once in a while just for a backup plan. It is a lot easier to sprinkle a packet than to harvest (I don't wash... I don't think it helps enough for me to bother) yeast and then make a starter the day before brew day. Except my first brews made with my own yeast were simply pouring new wort on top of the leavings of the batch just transferred to keg. Now THAT is lazy yeast "pitching". These days I just save a scoop in a zip lock, and when I want to use it I inoculate a one quart starter with it the day before. A little more work, but I save a few bucks on yeast every batch.
I started with a 5 gallon Northern Brewer kit, with the Block Party Amber Ale recipe. It was LME, with a bag of steeping grains. Bucket fermenter. I think my first upgrade was a Big Mouth Bubbler fermenter with spigot. MUCH easier to use, and I could observe my fermentation better. Way easier to sample. No worries with getting a stubborn lid off, or getting a good seal. I already had a crawfish boiling setup so I had burner, propane tank, etc and so getting a SS brew kettle was enough to get me doing nice big boils, which cleared the way for 5 gallon BIAB batches. I bought a Corona corn mill for busting up barley malt, and that wasn't expensive. I found some reasonably priced kegs, and bought a new top freezer refrigerator to turn into a kegerator. My mugs and glasses and hops live in the freezer. Below I have room for two corny kegs, CO2, and my small collection of yeasts. I figure now, about 3 years in, I have probably broke even on expenses vs buying beer at the store. I seldom share and seldom drink more than one glass a day. A keg lasts me about a month. A batch makes a keg, more or less, and any overage gets put in bottles. Apart from the fridge, my most expensive purchase was probably my Tilt hydrometer. I kinda like it and I don't regret buying it, in spite of its limitations. It is still more convenient than taking a SG sample all the time. It is great for monitoring temperature, too.
So I have a lot of reasons to like BIAB but being lazy isn't one of the big ones. However, traditional grain brewing to me seems more work and bother for not a lot of improvement in the beer, and no reduction in cost. If it wasn't for BIAB I might still be brewing with extract.
I thought about growing my own hops, and I still might. Apparently there are a few homebrewers growing their own Cascade hops in my area, though it is supposedly too far south. But managing trellisses, ensuring afternoon shade, and all that, looks like a bother. If I was brewing heavily hopped IPAs, I would maybe go for it to save money, but I typically use and ounce of hops in a 5 gallon batch, so I buy by the pound and freeze in one ounce ziplocks.
My next big thing will be no-chill brewing. I have a food grade 5 gallon jug that should work great for that. With winter approaching, it should work pretty good, and save on the water bill. Maybe a bit less work than rigging the immersion coil chiller and cleaning it when I am done.