Making a breadboard prototype used to be common practice, but with a lot of new technology it's often not possible anymore. High frequencies requires small tolerances. Luckily, getting a pcb prototype made, isn't as expensive as it used to be.
Not to mention that most interesting parts just don't come in through-hole packages, and the time it takes to wire up anything even remotely complicated. Yes, there are some prototyping boards that have various SMD package footprints, but PCBs fabrication is generally cheap and fast enough now that it's not really worth the time anyway if you're reasonably sure everything works in theory.
