The design perks are quite difficult. I haven't played the game enough to know what exists and not. So when designing a henchman I have to guess on skills, when coming up with a summon I have no idea what kinds to chose between and I have a difficult time with the "Personal Dual Dialogue" (don't know what kind of structure it has to be in) and "Design An Item Combo" (have no idea which items are in the game and how they combine). I wish they provided more examples and a clearer description.
I suspect there's an error in the Henchmen spreadsheet though. Aren't the second ability point supposed to be more expensive than the first and the third even more expensive? If you have five ability points in the spreadsheet you can spend them to get five points in an ability. Don't think it is supposed to work that way?