thanks for the thoughtful response
bear in mind that Thomas Edison founded GE in 1892 and this mentality makes it successful building things from toasters, diesel locomotives and nuclear power plants on the Arabian peninsula.
as you said, everyone's expectations and economic situation is different. This is why I, and I believe most of us, can't even afford second best and drive a Chrysler, not a Mercedes, much less a high-end Mercedes.
engineering is often about using inexpensive components and technologies (electronic and firmware) to achieve the performance of more expensive components alone.
Linn Westcott circuits leading up to his True Action Throttle (TAT) attempted to achieve/exceed the performance of more expensive motors using inexpensive motors. (I don't believe motors were better back then). I believe most DCC decoders do this today using
PWM. Would there be a noticeable difference in performance using a more expensive motor with a typical DCC decoder?
as the name implies, his TAT also attempts to mimic the behavior of the train by providing momentum and requiring braking. I believe most decoders have momentum (not sure about braking).
his TAT also included a compensation circuit that could adjust the speed of the motor based on the current load. This circuit could actually increase the speed of a train going up a hill and slow it down when going down hill. Of course it was usually adjusted to do the opposite as real trains do.
how many modelers would value (pay more for) a feature (change speed on hills) in decoders using firmware monitoring
BEMF rather than buy a better more for (?) better performance?