we tried that when we first started out… and our losses were ~40%. The acrylic only costs $50 or so per sheet, but as it takes 48 hours of laser time to engrave a full sheet of our product, the time loss was catastrophic.
The error that makes it skip does not happen all that often when you compare it to single losses… but it does happen 1-2 times per sheet.
Our sheets are 8’ x 4’ (2451 x 1231mm), and our cut jobs range from 200 items to 2000 per sheet. If we even cut a quarter sheet at a time the laser time would be ~18+ hours and we would not know a “skip” had happened until the cut layer cut items out, and if that is off by even 1mm it ruins the entire job. We had that happen a great deal when we were first getting started and I did not know how to group etc in RDWorks. Our losses were near 50% at one point for a period of weeks.
I have now learned how to get around that… and that is to 1. make sure items cut start to finish one at a time. and 2 monitor to make sure none of the pieces previously cut failed to fall thru - as those can sometimes catch on to the laser nozzle as it travels over and cause the laser gantry to “drag” the sheet, which also screws up the entire cut. In short there have been a lot of lessons learned over the last year and while I know there are a lot more I need to learn, this one is pretty deeply engrained. I simply cannot afford the chance engraving multiple items at once brings.
I can for now continue using RDWorks until this is sorted. The only thing I need lightburn for is the serial number feature, which is used on a single fairly small piece only… and those I can chance doing 20 at a time as you suggest… and I will do that. But I would like to transition to lightburn full time eventually… will have to wait until this issue is fixed 
