"Home Grown" control solutions the answer?
Recent OGR forum postings have discussed "home grown" control applications using Smart Phones, Wi-Fi and "Arduino" (and similar)controllers along with custom control programs used with controllers produced by MTH, Lionel and others. It appears that a combination of control components from various manufacturers could result in a "standard" design which would allow for customized "software". The key to the direction of this control system design may depend on which manufacturers "open" their designs to the public (as recently announced by Lionel for their Legacy and Wi-Fi systems).
I would propose that members of the OGR forum community could form a "design team" to bring together the best ideas for moving forward rather than everyone coming up with individual home grown solutions. The best solution would be an "open" standard that included both MTH and Lionel control systems and technologies along with other third parties.