I think the author is understandably frustrated about seeing a lot of fanfare for sexy prototypes years or decades from the market, when he struggles every day with flaws in his actual mobility devices that could be improved in months if the manufacturers cared enough to do it.
The author is misguided in blaming the crab chair engineers for this state of affairs. The crab chair engineers aren't responsible for the myriad socioeconomic inefficiencies that make wheelchairs suck today. If they didn't work on crab chairs, they'd work on some other artsy project, and we still wouldn't have better wheelchairs. But everyone in this thread needs to chill out and stop being so personally offended that this writer is holding back human progress by not ass-kissing the crab chair.
The author is misguided in blaming the crab chair engineers for this state of affairs. The crab chair engineers aren't responsible for the myriad socioeconomic inefficiencies that make wheelchairs suck today. If they didn't work on crab chairs, they'd work on some other artsy project, and we still wouldn't have better wheelchairs. But everyone in this thread needs to chill out and stop being so personally offended that this writer is holding back human progress by not ass-kissing the crab chair.