Is there a way to try it or learn more before signup/email list sub?

I started composing about a year ago using general tools like CuBase and Garage Band and wow, it's tedious, even when the initial sketch is worked out before hand on a keyboard.

There are just a ton of ideas that come to mind on how it could be an order of magnitude more efficient. Maybe there are apps that don't focus so much on production, that do a better job solely for the writing music part?

I am not sure how familiar you are with notation, but you might wanna consider Dorico, it is focused more on writing than on production bus still has a lot of features to make it sound pleasant (as opposed to other notation programs like Finale or Sibelius.) It is a sort of notation program / DAW hybrid that I think is a really interesting crossover / niche. Another suggestion might be to check out Synfire. (I have no experience with Synfire though, yet)