My wife and I just completed a successful trip to Milan, Florence and Italy; successful because we saw an awful lot in just two weeks with much thanks to the itineraries provided in the Rick Steves guidebooks. We did not follow them slavishly but they provided a core that we could work with to customise our schedule. It was the first time we have used the RG resources but will do so again.
As an aside: we were in a restaurant one afternoon, overlooking the Ponte Vecchio,, and who should come in but the man himself, Rick Steves, guidebook in hand to which he looked to be adding notes. I wanted to go up and express my thanks but bowed to my wife and daughter's argument not to intrude, a decision I regretted but vowed to make up for by using this forum to express my gratitude to him. RG walks the talk as, I am sure, I am far from being the first to discover.