I have a similar problem. A lot of the time I merely find myself developing infrastructure instead of developing features. Part of the problem is writing in PHP

I have a similar problem. A lot of the time I merely find myself developing infrastructure instead of developing features. Part of the problem is writing in PHP without a framework (or, rather, a semblance of my own); a more significant part, I believe, is that I just really, really like building architecture. In that way, I'm probably being an architecture astronaut. The key, as you've said already, is managing client expectations. At some point you must have given a timeline, given a prediction for how long you thought something would take you. At some point you must also have deviated from that timeline/prediction; mine, as far as I've identified it to, is being an architecture astronaut. Hence, the first step, I think, is to narrow the problem down to those deviations, and question why you're deviating so. The deviations may even be something useful or necessary. Rather, figure out what is breaking, then step back and look at the whole picture to see what needs to change. Agile might be the answer here. At the very least, there are several very good ideas you can steal from agile to build your own approach to engineering.