CA for future home builder/owner

[Dave Pitman]

sorry for being unclear about "direct supervision"

No worries about that. In fact, that "subjective" phrase is probably the crux of it. If I were deciding, I would say that drawing (drafting) what is specified by the engineer would mean you are directly supervised by them, else the engineer would have to draft everything themselves.

A clear paper (email) trail is probably a good approach.

On the broader subject, I think that for the majority of people, having a design professional involved is critical for getting the best value. I've also seen first hand design professionals thinking they could actually build some portion of their project themselves to save hiring a professional tradesmen, and it showed. There are also good examples of amateurs designing and/or building nice work.

Good or bad outcomes; It goes both ways.