I imagine it's probably a bad idea to ask "Which software should I use?" so I'll talk about my experience (or lack thereof) a bit and some of you might have some recommendations.
I did my first (and so far only completed) font in Fontographer 3.5. I think I have a 4.1 license somewhere, but I think I've only ever used 3.5.
A few years ago, I bought TypeTool and ScanFont in a bundle. I'm not sure why I didn't get the Fontographer upgrade, but I think either it didn't have Adobe Illustrator import or it looked like it hadn't been updated in years. Maybe both. I don't remember for certain.
I have two fonts I am currently working on. I've been doing them in Adobe Illustrator. Shameful, I know, but I'm more accustomed to using Illustrator's drawing tools. I figured I would create them in Illustrator then import them into TypeTool when done. It'll probably be a pain, but my familiarity with Illustrator meant it would be more likely that the fonts would be completed if I did the work in TypeTool.
Anyway, while trying to troubleshooting a kerning issue (fine on Mac, screwy on Windows), I looked at software options again. TypeTool supports 65,535 glyphs. FontLab Studio supports 65,535. Fontographer 5.2 supports 20,000+. Do I need over 65k glyphs? Probably not but do I want to not have the option if I do? TypeTool and FontLab both generate OpenType TT fonts natively; Fontographer apparently needs to go through some conversion process. Is that bad? Fontographer 5.2 imports from Illustrator. Hmm.
I'm probably never going to be a huge foundry, so something like FontLab Studio (or Robofont or some of the other options) is probably overkill for me. TypeTool seems workable but it also feels like underkill. Maybe Fontographer is what I should be using. Then again, I could get FontLab for only $50 more. Maybe I should just stop worrying about the software and finish the two fonts I'm working on first.
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I actually get angry now when I have to do any (non-type-related) vector drawing in Illustrator.
My point is, I wouldn't let Illustrator import be a deciding factor. Whatever tool you choose, you'll get used to, and probably grow to love.
My start was similar to yours but now I can't stand drawing in Illustrator and any final logo or lettering work is drawn or at least finalized in a font editor.
Or I might hand-draw a font and scan it (or scan an old font). Then I tweak it. The original scanned letter is red. I'll copy that then tweak the copy. If I am somewhat happy with it, but not happy enough to declare it done, I make it blue. When I consider a letter finalized, I make it black.
Is there any type design software that would let me do something like that? Or close? Or do I just do things entirely wrong?
Glyphs, Fontlab (FL 6 at least), and Robofonts are all fine editors. Even if you only do this for fun, if I think back to drawing fonts in Illustrator now, I shudder in disgust. You’ll do so, too. Have a look at Glyphs Mini, which might fulfill your needs and is quite a bit cheaper than the professional tools.
It may be quite some time before a complete FontLab VI is ready and I expect it will be a huge improvement over FontLab Studio. However, if you upgrade Fontographer to FontLab Studio now, you will get a free upgrade to FontLab VI when it becomes available. That's a Mac offer but it may be available for Windows too (store.fontlab.com).
Yes, you would do this with a font editor; put your serif parts into components and then either just use those components as-is (with whatever flipping or scaling you want) in a new glyph, or decompose it into a new glyph and merge the parts together. In fact, you can do much more clever things than that with Glyphs - you can create parametric components so that you keep the basic serif shape but use sliders to change height, width, etc.
You can do this kind of thing using layers, or you can do it with multiple versions of the same glyph. Glyphs makes it easy for you to duplicate a glyph and work on the duplicated versions, and you can color-code those alternates, while having the original outlines shown in the background.
I've focused on Glyphs because that's what I use but all font editors should give you that.