I feel like closing that loop was actually bad for innovation. When we designed analog tubes, there could be some exciting piece to make/invent.
Now everything is programmable and we get stuck on “why” or “what” we are trying to make before we even start.
A bit like computer software, no one just messes around to make pong or hello world anymore, they are spending 6 months white boarding the thing before they write any code. (Or maybe they aren’t, but in hardware we do)
So … nothing super amazing in my sleep anymore. Waking up in the middle of the night to design a circuit to provide a constant -5vdc for a 555 timer while the rest of the circuit is +\- something or another, just doesn’t happen anymore.
Plus come up with factories that could mass-produce the products at commodity prices.
I always thought it was cool to see what happened when people like that got a hold of programmable electronics, especially solid-state.