Such a case could ONLY be made if my local big-box retailer wasn't absolutely overflowing with TVs made by other manufacturers that feature no such restriction.

Such a case could ONLY be made if my local big-box retailer wasn't absolutely overflowing with TVs made by other manufacturers that feature no such restriction. Are you really suggesting that Apple be FORCED to support this older, insecure, less useful RCS protocol instead of iMessage? That's absurd.