This is exciting stuff. Pinball boards are finally catching up after years of being stuck in the 80s.

Everything going SMD is kind of sad but you can still replace some SMD components, it's just more difficult. However replacement boards will be much easier to deal with; gone will be the days of swapping roms and jumpers, and instead I suspect all we'll need to do to switch games is swap the SD card or reflash via USB. Replacement boards should also be cheaper and easier for stern to produce.

Progress is good. The only thing I hope doesn't get the SMD treatment is the solenoid driver, as we've all blown a fet of 20. to-220 is a smaller footprint anyway. Though really soldering SMD fets isn't too bad.

There's almost no reason to not want this, unless you're one of the unlucky people who get to play beta tester.