(I am a very new newbie newb)
So it's my understanding that something like the ESP8266 is meant only to be a development/prototyping board, and that traditionally, the next step would be to design and manufacture your own PCB. However, my design is incredibly simple, only requiring wi-fi and the ability to control approximately 300-400 individually addressable LEDs.
This would be a small volume product, and I find it difficult to believe that something so simple requires custom-made PCBs. Is there such a thing as a general-purpose production-grade microcontroller? It seems to me that if you can create something like an ESP, you should be able to create something similar that meets the standards necessary to be safely included in a commercial product.