If a frog had a glass ass, it would bust it a hoppin'.
Frankly, arguing against an assertion made in the present with present facts, is not weakened by a hypothetical future. The assertion was essentially, there are lots of "A". I demonstrated that there are apparently no "A"(at least in the U.S.). If one can patent a swinging technique, then I suppose one should be able to patent a kludge no matter how well it functions.
When the per-compononent cost of a circuit approaches zero, any improvement in performance is an improvement.
I think if you look around at the world you will see such things a digital voltmeters at Radio Shack. They replace much simpler analog designs without providing much usable improvement in accuracy or reliability (at least not for the typical Radio Shack customer). This observation could be repeated thousands of times among the everyday objects we live with. Labeling an object with a pejorative name is no more usefull that labeling a person with a pejorative name.
In alle this discussion, you have failed to address the only important point being argued -- that is the the circuits designed by the computer program have features that could that could not be designed by the people who wrote the program.