This is one of the odd things about "upgradability" with modern technology. It is very cool to get a new device (in this case a Dish DVR) and see that it has expansion ports and things that are there for "future use" so we feel like we can upgrade to the next thing by just adding a small part.
But then the way technology obsoletes itself these days... it is often cheaper for the company to make a whole new box than make an expansion... and sometimes they even can offer it cheaper to the consumer too!
Also coming into play... maybe they can add a card that performs new features, but the old receiver is not robust enough to peak perform with the add-in like a new receiver with a faster CPU can do.
I used to run into this a lot with my home computer upgrades... Always wanting a new graphics card or faster hard drive, but realizing my old CPU couldn't keep up so to truly use the use features I needed a new CPU and motherboard too.
In the current case of the ViP series... enabling Ethernet and offering Ethernet and USB support for things would be cool and probably will happen... though who knows when! Hopefully there will be new features that can be enabled/added that will perform well enough when enabled on these boxes and not make us wish for the next one that is faster.
I sit on the fence a lot of times with upgradability as it often is the case that in order to truly make something capable of being upgraded for the future... you have to sacrifice performance now. Usually a designer ends up with a choice to optimize performance right now and maybe sacrifice expandability OR make it expandable but sacrifice performance.
Just 2.5 cents
