Ciro Santilli The breadboard of photonics!
For example, that is how most modern microscopes are prototyped, see for example Video "Two Photon Microscopy by Nemonic NeuroNex (2019)".
This is kind of why they are also sometimes called "optical breadboarbds", since breadboards are what we use for early prototyping in electronics. Wikipedia however says "optical breadboard" is a simpler and cheaper type of optical table with less/no stabilization.