As a Professional.. I receive a snub from a lot of persons who think that they know what they are doing. Its not just doing of bit of research on the internet and then even though you have it well planned and organized that what you want to have happen will happen. Quite often I find that I end up eating the cost of my trial and errors in order to find the perfect solution for this... and or that. I spend a lot of time with testing equipment. Understanding how and why certain things do the things they do. I then take this experience to the customer to offer them the BEST VALUE.

The automation systems I use protects our industry by not offering their products to "TRUNK-MONKEYS" (those that have a shop in the back of their family car's trunk). If they were to make these products readily available.... just like Control 4... all of the sudden it gets a bad name from it being installed in a poor manner.

Usually there are 3 options available to a customer.
(CHEEP, COOL, EASY) pick 2 you arent getting the 3rd one.

When a DIY slams the Automation industry and thinks he can do what I can. Yeah you deserve some attitude dude. Find your place. Its not amungst the professional.

P.S. obviously a engineer.... and you should know better about the costs of R&D.