It would be nice to be able to see what blocks are needed for a design like we do with blueprints without having to start construction to get the resource list, stop construction cuz we have to go mine something to build something rinse repeat
Indeed it would. At the moment, the "best" way to side-step that issue is to keep a blueprint of the ship you're going to be making in the shipyard.
Not needing to side-step (or otherwise "work-around") is usually better.