Distributed I/O Benefits and Dangers in Agriculture

[Alpha-Jason]

I wanted to start a discussion about the perceived benefits to using distributed IO in agriculture.

Pros: Initial installation and troubleshooting is reduced due to the reduction of wiring.
Increased diagnostics due to the additional hardware in the loop.
Reduced Mean Time To Repair due to reduced wiring lengths.

Cons: Requires communication to the IO stations
Increases technical proficiency required to troubleshoot system issues.

Alleviating factors for cons:
Ring network topology can automatically correct for one communication path failure and can provide immediate diagnostics to the user.
Increased diagnostics can provide a more grainular picture to less experienced technicians. This can be down to the individual wire in the system that has failed. With proper documentation this can enable the use of technicians with basic training.
Using Head units with fail-over PLC oeration local IO can be operated without communication to the central system.

What do y'all think are other factors?