I suppose I really should read through the entire thread...
Nah.
I've only played a techno once, and that was core book only.
Chargen is a problem, technos are MAD and need a huge number of skills. Plus they want complex forms. They either need to specialize purely in techno or they suck; a decker can usually have a secondary specialty.. Which leads to the next problem
Technos are high reward characters, but the risk of fading with the main complex forms is absurd for something you need to repeat turn after turn after turn. Sprites are better, but are a finite resource that can be chewed through fast. If they do it the conventional method, with marks, you run into the fact that they aren't nearly as good as good as a decker at that.
Most devastatingly, in my experience they really aren't all that good at defense. The decker can keep his team's wireless gear functioning fairly easy. A techno needs to dedicate significant resources (Infusion of firewall and/or sprites) to achieve the same.
The strengths of the techno should be complex forms and sprites. But CFs have too much fading for regular use, leaving us just sprites.
If any one of the problems I mentioned weren't extant (chargen resource vacuum, sucking at defense, CF fading) a techno would be good. But it's a one trick pony that's average at it's one trick.
-----
Anyone ever try a TM that focuses on sprites for it's matrix assets, and skimps his own hacking skills? How viable would that be? Because an Aspected Technomancer would be a possible fix -
- missing either a matrix attribute (So no Attack or no Sleeze,) or missing CFs, or missing sprites. Make up the difference with more automatic skills, or even help with CF fading
