yeah IDK why the crimp tool is so hard to get in pneumatic if you tried to get a sheet metal guy to use a manual nibbler they would be like WTF
That part of the industry lagged. Of course, the problem is if someone just wants to do repairs, then you need manual or small electric tools. But for prototyping places.. its like under equipped without a benchtop crimper TBH
Like its kinda within the budget of even the smallest company. For the amount of BS it gets rid of , its cheap. Like lol they have a 3k expresso machine but its being crimped by archemedes with a cheater bar
There is something to be said about a pneumatic stripper too. I have the most expensive of the hand tools in my toolbox but their not fool proof. Its still made of plastic and if you switch wire insulation around (like you should during prototyping) you will run into some thickness or material that does not quite work well with the tool. The problem with that one, is that damaged strands and torn insulation get covered up EXTREMELY well by the work force so people don't know whats really going on there. Dead eyed liar saying the wire is "fine' after being mangled by a 20 year old harbor freight deal. Ok, maybe its fine for the code inspector on the job site you got your training on, but its not ok on the 30 awg teflon wire in a telemetry adapter box.
So basically I noticed, with the hand strippers, I can do a good job, but its way slower. You need to frequently readjust the tool with test wire. Within only 3 months I noticed none of the settings I had are working anymore. If you care enough to look at your wire under a microscope, you will desire the nice stable pneumatic stripper (one of the things I miss from a factory). Something about the momentum makes it tear off the wire insulation nice and clean without having to get too deep in the insulation. The hand tool is more likely to do damage IMO.. I get a little worried doing multi conductor cables that are fine with it. If you only got 7 strands, and its thin gauge, I can't accept a nicked strand there in something I deem reliable.... its bearly strong enough if its made perfectly... but thats a thing you run into with signals that have to be compact IMO. The little matchbox strippers are also just as problematic as the self adjusting ones if you expect it to have a long tool life. seems like a false economy in some senses.. you can get by of course, but its a bit of a pain
I thought I could have people do some of the labor like distribute it, but with the hand stripper, its like.. your just gonna end up nicking one of the wires unless your good because the tooling seems to drift. so i stopped trying to make that part into a team activity. With the pneumatic one you could get the desk jockys to help out if its set right 
I feel like you're a bit hung up on pneumatic specifically, when the real goals are a) hand tools that are easy to use, and b) automatic tools (regardless of technology).
Crimp tools vary widely, even for a specific type of contact. For example, at work I have two different Knipex hand crimpers for insulated terminals. They use identical dies. But one is the slightly cheaper, more compact handle design, the other is larger and slightly more expensive. I far prefer using the latter, because its longer handles and different lever arrangement result in it requiring significantly less hand force to operate. (And its jaw action is closer to parallel.)
Or how Molex has made many, many, many different hand tools for the Mini-Fit Jr. contacts over the years, at various price points. The current "PremumGrade" ones (= the non-budget hand tools that cost around $400), with parallel-action jaws, made by Pressmaster, need far less hand force than more traditional tools.
This huge range of performance is all with purely mechanical hand tools.
Then there are the partly automatic hand crimping tools that use reeled contacts, eliminating the need to insert individual contacts in the tool. These tools are designed for medium volumes that are too tedious and unergonomic for the simpler tools.
Then you get to benchtop crimpers that are still operated by humans (i.e. you insert the wire manually). And finally, fully-automatic machines that feed, cut, strip, and crimp the wire without human intervention.
Similarly, with wire strippers there are many different types, from the cheapest manual strippers, to automatic manual strippers, to benchtop machines, to fully automatic unattended ones.
At work, a different department (where I used to work) has two benchtop strippers, one using V-cut blades (good for most kinds of "ordinary" insulation and some more challenging ones), and one rotary coaxial stripper, which uses flat blades spinning at high speed. It's primarily intended for step-stripping coaxial cables (i.e. you program in the various cut depths and strip lengths, then you insert the wire, press the pedal, and it does it all in one go), but it's also great for challenging insulation like Kapton.
I TOTALLY understand your frustration with people who don't "see" quality, and think crap is "fine". Especially the ones who don't see flaws even once told what to look for. I think this is why military and aerospace have such strict requirements not only on workmanship standards, but on which tooling is allowed, and how it must be maintained. It has to be made idiot-proof, especially against what I consider to be "willful idiots" who dismiss what they are taught.
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