Hello Greg!
DRAFT mode is like 2D CAD buried in SketchUp. When active, the background is black, lines are shown in “color by layer”, and orbiting is restricted to 2D pan. So it feels a lot like 2D CAD! But… not as clean… or snappy… or something. It was okay a few years ago, but the scaled drawing command in LayOut is so much better.
I agree that you can pretty much get there by sectioning your SketchUp model. That’s definitely how I start a detailed wall section. Once you get it over in LayOut, you can explode the viewport to convert it into a scaled drawing. Now, you can double click into the scaled drawing and work on the wall section like CAD. So when you type in 4 1/2″, it’s based on the model space, not paper space. So I start with an general overall section, then explode into a scaled drawing, then add all the little details.
Check out the ConDoc 2D tutorials, I think those should have a lot of references to scaled drawings. Let me know if that clears things up!
Mike