It is about what I expected. In every field, hobby, and product area there is technical progress that eventually obsoletes the previous generation. TMCC, Legacy, and DCS were conceived and put in place before there was so much broadcast bandwidth available for consumer products and also before inexpensive components were available that could do so much with a tiny slice of that bandwidth. They used what hey could and did the best they could Also, the people who conceived them got into a type of "features" contest for "market leadership" that led to gobs of interesting, and for a few, fun, programming options and codes and such that gave model train enthusiasts control of aspects of the train they never had before. The result was two good, if complex systems, that are expensive in terms of both manufacturing cost and user involvement and skills required to use them.
The way I see it, LC+ is the first of a more modern "paradigm" that will gradually creep into more space in hour hobby until it, and similar systems, dominate. Lionel is using it very cleverly, in actually the same way TMCC and DCS where marketed initially: offering something that the other systems can't. With TMCC and DCS that was extraordinary levels of control. With LC+ it is simplicity and ease of use. The electrical engineer in me knows that LC+ has the capability for all the detailed control Legacy and DCS provide, is simpler and cheaper overall, and therefore that it will eventually evolve into the next generation. But the manufacturers also know that there is a large, enthusiastic population of users for TMCC, Legacy, and DCS out there, so there are not going to abandon those systems anytime soon, and they probably have or will develop plans for their "next generation" systems to use direct radio control like LC+ but also be compatible with "legacy" (pun intended) systems like TMCC-Legacy, DCS, and conventional. I have absolute confidence they will achieve all of this: the engineering doesn't strike me as challenging, although the product design would be, I think.
Regardless, this reminds me of the advent of fuel injection in mass market cars (I'm not talking about the Chevy's Fuelie 'Vette and similar early, expensive applications, but when throttle body fuel injection first came on the market. Traditionalists among the hot rod crowd poo-pooed it as "just an electronic carburator" and had lots of reasons why carburators were better for both drag and amateur road racing For a while that remained true. But gradually F.I. got good, until today, direct injection is heading toward being universal, and is just awesome.
It is to be expected that there will be a lot of people who are very committed to the "older" technology and take a while to come around, and a few who will, forever, resist the new, and want to stay with the old: In all these fields, train, cars, and others, there are hobbyists who are proud of their skills with the old technology, guys who love muzzle loading guns, are proud of their skills rebuilding, setting up, jetting, and synchronizing carburetors, etc. It is no different with toy trains. In fact, it makes the hobby more diverse and rich in some sense, so I'm all for it.
As long as they don't lose the LC+ simplicity and robustness.
