Ken-Oscale,
I can't really disagree with much you've said there, but I would like to add some thoughts. The thing of it is, in regard to what Big L will or won't offer, I don't think there is any money in it for them to release legacy engines with LC+ electronics. It would make a lot of lower budget folks very happy, but I think it would annoy many high dollar guys that paid those high dollars for legacy engines. It is my opinion that Lionel sees it in their best interest not to make Lionchief in any way competitive with the higher end product. No point in offering an engine that looks the same for less dollars when at the moment when even conventional runners are paying the top dollar for an engine with the details and such that they want.
When it comes down to it, the electronics inside a Lionchief Plus engine cost just about the same as those in a Legacy engine, and if Lionel chose to take the muzzle off LC's electronics, it could do as much, or more than Legacy.
I think most folks look at the electronics package, and judge it by what functions it is used for. In truth the sort of tech used for Lionchief is far more advanced than that in legacy. One could think of it like this: Legacy is like running a top end computer program from 1995 on a computer built in 2005. The system is more than enough to do everything for the program, but in the end, here in the year 2016, the program still does everything it is supposed to, but there are so many better programs for a modern computer that do the thing better and with more features.
LionChief Plus, on the other hand, is something like going out and buying a brand new middle-to-high end computer, setting it up, then never using it to do anything but play solitaire. The computer can do things so much better that that old one from 2005, but there is no way to show that by only using it to play solitaire.
With the real life electronics packages, I would be very surprised if the component cost the electronics in legacy is anything over $25. I expect the component cost for Lionchief is a bit less, in the $20 range, mostly due to a lower cost sound chip. Given this, I can't see why lionel would sell an engine that costs about the same to make for $500 when they can sell it for $1200. Now there are some added costs on a legacy engine, better speakers, better amp chip, and whatever special lights and smoke and such, but LED's are just pennies, and tiny blower motors and heating elements are maybe a couple of bucks.
Point of all this? I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Big L to use Legacy tooling on Lionchief engines. On the other hand, I see no reason for them not to produce every single old tooling TMCC and conventional engine style, and everything they have from K-Line.
JGL
