The Puxing 777 that Hectic used recently was programmed in about 5-10 minutes while I was at work as I had Frank ship it to me at work.
I have yet to have to reprogram it.
What some people are likely having issues with is the groups who insist on using sub tones. I refuse to program any of my radios with sub tones as the permutations are extensive and you are likely to run out of channel memory. Forget attempting to get to those channels quickly.
The Wouxun I have came with the programming cable so whenever I need to refresh my base programming, I just fire up the software but again, have yet to go in and do other than when I first got it or when I wanted to store a couple other NOAA channels and didn't want to bother with going through with the on board programming.