Odd the one doing his own thing worries about team work.....
I was left "doing my own thing"
because Con and Kano were unwilling to continue collaborating.
And BFGMiner now has more contributors than cgminer, just FWIW.
I really do like the hotplug ability that libusb added. Maybe no one else does. Even there you have to change a driver to get a feature. I'm not sure it is a big loss or mind boggling.
Hotplug is definitely a good feature to have, IMO. But there is nothing about it that requires bypassing the official drivers. BFGMiner does hotplug just fine with any USB, VCOM, or HID device, and will automatically trigger it in the next version.
Fighting with USB Serial drivers is the biggest headache I've had in my day job with supporting customers.
I'm curious as to what you had to fight? The VCOM drivers just automatically work/install in most cases...