When I started soldering everything was big and had leads that went through holes in the board. You inserted the leads, bent them over to hold the component, flipped the board over, soldered everything, and trimmed off the excess leads.
Now I’m soldering things down to 0402 SMDs (1/4 the size of the smallest component in the picture) using a needle point soldering tip and a microscope.
A pair of 2N2222 transistors, one SOT23 and one TO-92.
The smallest I have worked with are 0402s and I find them incredibly annoying. The smallest I go now is 0805. If I need smaller I’ll just have the boards assembled by the fab house in China. I mostly use All PCB but my friends have tried PCB Way and another that I can’t remember. They say that the boards are all basically the same.