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netlinx is too new and complicated (for now).

Clearly said by someone that spent little to no time looking at NetLinx. As someone that's worked extensively with both systems, I can say that AMX is no more complicated - or less complicated - than NetLinx is.

Device assignment is pretty much identical. You can write and run AMX code pretty much unchanged on NetLinx systems and it'll work. Or you can use newer programming constructs - that's up to you. So you can't really say the programming language is too complex (since you can use identical code).

It's easy to say "it's too complicated" when you haven't looked at it. That, to me, is really saying "I don't have a clue about it because I haven't looked at it or been trained on it".

Clearly, based on what you said, Panja success is regional. In the Seattle region, Definitive and Magnolia (two Hi-Fi outfits, the former carrying higher end stuff like Meridian) both do Panja and don't appear to do Crestron. They will sometimes contract jobs out to other companies, though, and some of those companies will do Crestron.

While I do really like my automation system, it's clear to me that both Crestron and Panja are far too costly. They're basically special purpose computers that do RS-232, I/R, relays, contacts, etc. For that, both manufacturers charge more than the cost of a small PC-based server for their main control units. Looking at PC prices, that's pretty outragous. Perhaps with more competition, or maybe just someone manufacturing some add-in cards and software to (easily) do that stuff on a PC, prices will come down.

There's no question though, that a powerful automation system can make the most complex systems totally trivial to operate.

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