> Could modernization have been done with a dedicated protocol? I guess so. But probably not because it adds an other layer of friction and complexity to deplo

> Could modernization have been done with a dedicated protocol? I guess so. But probably not because it adds an other layer of friction and complexity to deployment, which doesn’t do much good to your odds. And it requires an entire additional ecosystem of inspection and protection capabilities to appear. Not to mention the parsing and serialisation of a bespoke protocol, and the risk of all the usual framing and escaping errors in the protocol. It also requires going to Iana for a port.