Guns,
I agree if the upgrade to the switches cost $50.00 and you can get a new FT CC on sale for $65.00, better to just purchase a new FT CC switch, and sell the manual & controller.
However if you have 072 switches thru out your layout or anything larger than an 048 for that matter, and the cheapest you can get them is for around $86.00, now that is a different matter. Saving $35.00 on each switch, on a layout with 20 or 30 switches, is serious money.
PCRR/Dave