This might sound really stupid to you all that use this type of software for a living and I don't know how to really word it but...

I own a landscaping company, so much of our stuff could be better with alterations here and there and we also like to dive in and build our own stuff. In the past, we winged it, measure, cut, weld - get it all together and when we would make it the second and third time we always come up with better or different ideas - we make flat beds for trucks, snowplows, ride on sulkies for mowers etc...

I bought ViaCad Pro so we could take some of the winging it out of the process - a 3d visual so that maybe we could figure out where to punch holes for wiring in advance but the real thing I wanted was to be able to draw a complex end unit, like a big snowplow for a front end loader and be able to pull all the little pieces and parts out of that drawing so that I could either make them here or have them laser cut.

That leads to the begining of the question: You are going to draw this big snowplow that has many parts (danielsplows.com for instance). Do you draw a bunch of individual assemblys and then place them together on one drawing, do you do it in layers? How do you pull the individual parts / pieces out of the drawing - for instance, the plow blade itself has some curve to it, there is webbing on the back for support - I can draw it but how do you pull it out as just that web piece so that you can make just that piece??

Not ever taking any drawing classes, I just wonder at the method or procedure for drawing some big complex machine or unit??

I don't see anywhere about a referance manager. It has a "concept explorer" that has sysmbols in it, 99.9% useless in what I need.

Not believing I needed a full blown CAD program, I'm seeing where these partial programs are lacking - years ago I bought Soft Plan Light to draw homes we built, for simple homes, it's great but start doing ceiling height differences and hand framed roofs the full verion was the only way to go. The light version would do it, but a lot of manual figuring, the full version was a bunch more automatic.

One thing that I would use a lot is steel tubing, I see that you can get add on modules for Auto CAD that already has the tubing completed whereas in ViaCAD I have to draw every tube we use, sure you can cut and paste but that's a bunch of time....

Any suggestions on which software would fit the best? Draw 100% steel objects made from tubing, plate and custom pieces and it'd be a wonderfull day if I could rotate a dump bed in the air or swivel a snowplow digitally before it was a real object in the shop....

If you have reference manager, it should be under File. Try searching the help files or do a search on the guide.

The concept explorer is my friend and I always use it for parametrics but I understand you want results asap.

Good luck with your project.

You model an assembly in one file, because PunchCAD is 'feature-based', so you're using the edges, vertices, centres, faces and whatnot of each part to locate, align and proportion subsequent parts that are all located and fastened together using the same features when you build the real-world assembly.
When you model an assembly in one file, selecting individual parts and exporting 'selected only' with a distinct file name separates individual parts so that individual attention can be given to sheet layouts and production methods. Backwards-and-forwards external referencing is useful, but not essential.
So, for your purposes, exporting the assembly components into individual files and taking sheet drawings from each is probably a useful approach. If they're not referenced to the assembly drawing (even if they are), a date/version/revision file-naming system and a textual revision history will help to keep things straight.
Fasteners are useful as 3D symbols, but ViaCAD is a generic CAD program, like AutoCAD. Tubing is cylindrical, plate is a block or slab. ViaCAD does cylinders, blocks and slabs....piping add-ons just deal with routing, as do electronic board layout add-ons, for example.