starnet attempting to answer your points one by one in a civilised tone:
" it requires a human to be present at all times and do the button pushing for every single thing" Not so. It requires the button push to turn it on. Everything else can be done from the App except for power down without parking. And if you didn't have to press the button - remote wake-up - you'd be discharging the battery all the time when switched off just in case a remote wake-up were required. There would have to be either full-on Wi-Fi connectivity all the time (or a permanent "station" mode and wake up every minute or so to see if an App was wanting to connect and a scope-initiated exchange.
"Here is another example, the S50 has the voice of a lady telling you what the unit is doing, starting up, shutting down, aligning, capturing and so on. Too bad there is nobody there to hear her, because I am in the the house as I would rather not freeze to death" If you're starting up, you have to be out there with it as you have to press the power button. The reassuring voice that it is doing so (having presumably passed POST) is for me a comfort - but you can turn her off in the app if you don't want her telling the world what's going on.
"Why isn't the app playing these messages, rather than having me peering through my window in the dark trying to guess what the S50 is doing?" Well, when "starting up" the WiFi won't be connected, so the App won't know. And when powering down, the App effectively tells you - if you slid the slider to power it down, one of the first things to disappear is intelligent connectivity - the app disconnects.
"ZWO, the assumption that a human is present at all times, either near the S50 or holding the phone, for hours, during night time is fundamentally flawed and will limit the adoption of the S50. You need to consider very seriously automation if you want this product to be successful." Not so. It assumes presence at start-up and soon after shut-down. At start up you surely will be doing a fine-tune to the level bubbles with the app so, apart from pressing the power button, will need to be there for a short time at least. And of course after shut down, particularly in such temperature extremes as you are facing, you'll want to take the instrument indoors. You'll likely also want to open the unit up a little after too - with the dew heater on for a while - to ensure that the unit condensation build-up does not stray to the lens.
"And the real flaw here is not the lack of a park disable feature but the exact opposite. What do you do when the S50 battery runs out [...] and you can no longer control it and the arm is raised? "
I've not put it to the test, but I bet the folk who specified the system have thought of this - I bet the scope gives itself a "power down" command and folds itself up before the battery finally reaches zero - ie, an inset on the real zero.
", or even worse, your phone battery runs out" - you press the power button for a second or so until you hear that welcoming female voice saying "shutting down"
"And remember, you do not even have a lens dust cap, unless you 3D-printed yourself one" You have arguably better. The lens is tucked in a small but vented void with the glass protected from turbulence and by gravity.
