Graphics and illustration: the alphabet of life science communication?

Many of us have been there; head buried in a paper, trying to fathom a complex mechanism, but unable to find a clear schematic to represent and explain it. Meanwhile, when trying to create a graphic for your own work, you spend hours hacking away at ctrl+c, ctrl+v to generate enough balls and sticks to create a phospholipid bilayer in PowerPoint until you bore a hole in your ctrl key or you have to book an appointment to have someone address your searing carpel tunnel syndrome. But could there be a better way, and just how severely is this aspect...