I don't think it should be mandatory, but as I said, cost of planes, flight time, training, etc... 5000 ish, I'd be a fool not to have it along in my plane.
Its one of those things, if in the scheme of a plane, 5K is too much, you are barely in the game anyway.
But the .gov mandates way to much crap as is...
Mandated for commercial use maybe... but not personal.
