Has todays's software and hardware integration in
off-the-shelf rigs now gone too far, with tiny components,
or IC pins being too close together, or proprietary software
for which the sources are closley guarded, to the extent
that amateur radio as practised becomes indistinguishable
from the man-in-the-street with his mobile phone, merely
as consumers and not as technocrats?

Does this presage a return to homebrewed stations made
from simpler components and small scale integration ICs?

There has to be something to differentiate the radio amateur
from other consumerist users of communication whether they
be squaddies, ploddies or just men-in-the-street with smart phones;
perhaps just the self respect of a technocrat?