NASA's Explorer class instruments are intended as low-cost, quick-turnaround missions. Associated with those admirable goals, however, is the necessity of accepting a higher risk of design or implementation flaws in the flight hardware and software systems. This paper will discuss some of the design issues that arose during the development of the EUVE science payload at UC Berkeley, how they were solved, and how those decisions have worked out, based on the successful completion of the survey phase of the EUVE science mission.