I don't disagree with your main parts, but this wasn't a "poorly implemented custom RF solution." This was a lightweight wireless protocol and system from TI,

I don't disagree with your main parts, but this wasn't a "poorly implemented custom RF solution." This was a lightweight wireless protocol and system from TI, exactly designed for building relatively simple and cheap RF products. In the same way that web developers grab Bootstrap and get a beautiful-enough site working out of the box, this company found a Bootstrap-for-wireless-communications framework and chip from TI. What they didn't do is customize it for their needs (security-hardening) nor use any non-default configuration. Point is, using a pre-built building-block component to speed up your go-to-market isn't inherently bad. In fact, you might even argue that an alarm company who rolled their own fly-by-night wireless protocol would raise more eyebrows.