[KenWittlief]

your examples of being able to put together a one shot circuit quickly and easily assumes you already have experience with 555 timers, or similar devices, and you dont have to consult a data sheet to look up the equations, figure out whether to use ceramic or electolytic or tantilum caps, variable resistors, carbon, wire, precision resisitors, to get the performace you need under all conditions

I could equally argue that with my 10 years of experience using PIC chips I can pull a PWM or timer subroutine out of my existing libraries, compile the SW in a minute or two, and all I need is power and gnd to the 8 pin PIC chip, and it will be producing a very accurate, very precise waveform in a matter of minutes

and with the in-circuit programablilty of PIC chips, I can change any of the parameters faster than you can unsolder and solder caps and resistors.

I dont know where those 1 billion one shot chips are going each year. I can honestly say that in my 20 years of electrical and computer design experience, on both military and commercial products, I have never used one, and I have never seen any product at any of the companies Ive worked for use one either.