I really don't see why everyone seems to think this is a bad piece of equipment. It might not be the first thing you go for, but it does allow actions and provide bonuses that no other piece of equipment can. Plus, a +6 to firewall and data processing is huge; I think it's worth it for this bonus alone, though, not until you've already maxed out your deck. Granted, this isn't something your average runner team is going to be able to afford, but at 24F and 1.2 million, you're talking about a high end campaign. Could be you've already bought everything you need; would you rather have a long list of small bonuses that might add up to keep you alive or an extra million in the bank? And when your decker is having to face down a rating 12 sprite, would you rather do it with a rating 10 firewall or a rating 16?
While your points are valid, you're missing a big one-- You've underestimated that 1.2 million nuyen. That will
never happen for a player. Even a "high end campaign" where everyone has what they need already won't have that kind of money unless the GM is just deciding that they don't want money to matter at all. At least for myself and Mirikon, we're mainly talking about the only one that seems even remotely attainable, the Level 1 PI-Tac, which is still crazy expensive.
The level 1 PI-Tac is not worth the price for runners at all. A Level 2 PI-Tac starts to be quite useful, but now it's over
eight hundred thousand nuyen.
Let's say the group is gonna work together to make this money. Let's say the team is four people-- A decker, a face, a street samurai, and a mage. The decker says "No way. It's cool, but I already need to save up hundreds of thousands to get a better deck in general and this doesn't help me that much." So he's not willing to put in any money. But the rest are. The Street Samurai figures it's a decent boost to his ability and gives up half his income to a "PI-Tac Fund". The mage and face don't use it as much, but they also don't need money as much, so are gonna be very generous and give up 3/4 of what they make.
We have to assume these are relatively new runners. Maybe they've been running for a year, but they haven't been saving their money for a PI-Tac yet, and so they've improved a bit. Looking at the book, the "really big payday" run is "being foolish enough to accept a job that sends them into the teeth of a Sioux Wildcats lieutenant". Well they're not -that- good yet... But let's still assume they're doing something close. Every job from now on is against enemies with 16 in their highest dice pool (+4) and they will be outnumbered 2-1 by Professional R4 guys (+1). Maybe they're going against the Vory on a regular basis (like once a month) and a very skilled enemy is constantly there somehow.
So they'll make about 15k at base. They have a Face, so let's say he talks it up to 20k every time.
The Samurai gives up half (10K), while the Face and Mage give up 3/4 (30K total). So that's 40K to the fund every run, at the cost of the Face/Mage not getting any augmentations or foci and hampering the samurai. It will take them 21 runs to get this item. In the fund, the Samurai saved up almost enough for someone to have B Resources, the Mage and Face saved up a bit more.
Maybe 21 runs with an average of "everyone give up half their pay and let's do nothing but very difficult runs" isn't so bad. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people would prefer the danger at least.
