Before I made the decision to go HE, I was on the reddit smarthome forums. We had I contest to see who had the most switches visible from one spot in the house. I won or was near the top with 28 switches and fan controls visible from my breakfast area seat (semi-open floorplan in that section of the house). The great majority of those were 3- & 4-ways. I built the house in '87. So, yeah, I know your problem.
The outside & garage lighting was where I wanted to start and -yep- fairly bristling with 3- & 4-ways. I did not want to change the wiring as it would be a problem for my wife to rectify if I died and she decided to sell the house. I decided to give Third Reality surface-mounted switches a try as they were out in the garage and weren't going to catch my eye. That turned out to work very well as we went to voice command primarily.
So well, in fact, that I decided to do the same in the aforementioned breakfast/kitchen area. I bought 4 of the Version 2 models, painted them ivory to match, and mounted them in a semi-hidden spot beside the refrigerator. Works great, and since I mounted all four on a 4-gang plate it looks console-like and isn't an objectionable aesthetic.
BUT, this excellent, detailed post by @logan3089 -which sadly didn't get any traction here- DID catch my eye and I have it in my bookmarks. If you'e a firmware flashing kind of guy it might interest you.
