@Aurora,
nice and detailed explanation, as always!
As for me, I have read most of the thread, so I am aware of many discussions, including those you've referred hereto.
But others would find this interesting, thank you!
Personally I believe that in no way possible the E4 either with good sensor or not, modified or unmodified, hacked or not hacked, may ever come close to the professional cameras with their closed loop temperature stabilized microbolometers, dry gas filled interiors and vacuum chamber that encapsulates the sensor, this is simply not to happen!
Also, in no way possible the tiny, small aperture, low optical power lens of the E4 may ever allow for quality anywhere nears the quality that large germanium optical systems may deliver.
And, single span 14-bit ADC will of course never compete with multiple switched spans and 16-bit multiple ADCs on the professional cameras.
So I disagree that 'Flir afraid of modified E4 would compete to professional cameras'.
On the other hand, consider this.
If there is a company which makes money from Thermography in any application, building, industrial, medical etc., it will by no means escape the necessity to provide customers with some sort of certification of the applied instruments and methods, which means, both the cameras and the employees that are using in, and also those, who interpret the results and prepare the reports, must be qualified, certified, approved etc., etc.
Otherwise, business buyers would never agree on how to interpret and reproduce and compare the results! That is, not the apparent quality, but standardization itself makes this industry running.
No way possible with any of altered cameras, needless to say! The altered cameras will show today this, tomorrow somewhat else, or one instance of the same altered camera type performs in a different way that the other instance.
So what on Earth the decision making personnel would do in such the situation? The associated costs invested into correcting the faults found with IR thermography, might be many orders of magnitude higher compared with cost of professional cameras and hence the risk of false positives and false negatives will outrage any 'apparent savings' when buying a cheaper camera with idea to modify it.
To summarize, what you've said is one point of view, the point of view of large companies, corporations, businesses etc.,
My point of view is different,
I believe that sub 1000 market lives and behaves in a cardinally different way than both the industrial or military market, and trying to play on this market with the attitude developed from the above two mentioned, is a mistake.
It's like with PCs, those competitors will win who will provide the most open and cheap platform with quality of the hardware BUT also with maximum configurability, which allows each buyer to get most of own camera the way he wants, and how much he will achieve, must only depend on own resourcefulness, knowledge, patience and experience invested!
Those who agree, vote up!