WHAT? LOL, Did i just miss something? How many people on this forum alone are circuitbenders AND musicians? At least 90% if not more i would say. How many people on this forum own a whole load of decent equipment plus a load of circuit bent gear they've built and designed themselves? Me for one, and a lot of others i know of.
Correct me if i'm wrong but you seem to be quoting rather a lot of what can only be personal opinion and preference, as being accepted fact there? 
No, I don't think you are wrong at all. I agree with most of what you say, except I think that when it comes to defining what is 'professional' and what is not... that can be very subjective, hence the limitations of our opinions. And I know I will be chastised for saying this, but I am merely using the 'establishment' view on equipment standards and systems when it comes to describing anything designed and built by a large corporation. As much as I hate established procedures and designs (such as large, standard piano keys as opposed to nice, medium sized keys) I see many musicians wanting to break free from the restriction of an existing design in their equipment and adding detail and features in order to bring it closer to their own vision of what constitutes a professional or practical piece of gear.
The cult of circuit-bending itself brings a musician to modify, expand or bend his tools and there can be many reasons why he does it. But a lot of the time it works very much like an amateurish trend or an underground movement that over time, builds up and begins proliferating the professional scene. Then you get all kinds of talented and adept electronics gurus and musicians modifying pieces of equipment and turning mere toys into machines that are almost (and a lot of the time ARE) good enough to sit beside their more expensive effects-laden cousins.
As for the actual production of a bent toy with a control surface mounted directly on it... well I agree there are many bad, rushed examples out there and the very attitude of 'oh, it's just a cheap, nasty plastic piece of junk' lends itself to the 'devil-may-care' approach towards the design of a circuit-bent instrument. Sometimes, what I call "the industrial piece of nonsense look" can be a good thing, if done correctly. I think many people these days can tell the difference between a nicely executed work of art and something that was hurriedly slapped together in the span of an hour or two. We all have this ability to detect that... and a lot of the time people can be very forgiving and find ways to appreciate the junk as having some kind of random purpose. Which is where the topic becomes subjective again.
I've seen so many circuit bent toys that sound like rubbish to me. Nothing but static noise and crunching, grinding 'junk'... which can be quite good if that is what you are looking for. For example, I've recently seen a DD-12 on eBay made by (you know who) that looked absolutely fantastic! (lots of lovely switches along the side and knobs at the back, creating the impression of a top-of-the-range model with dozens more features)... but when he switched it on and started flicking the switches, it sounded AWFUL. I was expecting to hear some booming bass drums and some spine tingling Tekkno beats and pitching percussion... but all I got was scratch, scratch, scrape, scrape, ksshhhh... and this static noise that sounded like someone searching out a station on an old AM radio. Very disappointing to say the least because I was expecting to hear some amazing hardcore Tekkno drum sounds yet all I got was this 'crunch, crunch, crunch'. I was going to bid on it merely because of how it LOOKED, LOL. The guy who modified it did a great job of making it LOOK like those switches and dials were meant to be there.
IMHO, the majority of bent machines out there are made by amateurs with a keen sense to explore and push the boundaries of electronics (which is the whole point of bending, I know) but a lot of the time are built to very messy, random and unconventional standards, if any.
If benders want to place controls directly onto their bent toys, then greater care should be taken to at least make it LOOK like the controls were designed to be there. To me, that makes more sense. Like that dude with the wicked bent SK-8 with pitch wheel, 32x sample bank, etc. Now THAT is what I call professional design. I guess it all boils down to what kind of effect you're trying to achieve.
I don't mind seeing a pink Barbie keyboard with patch leads and control dials hanging off it being thrown around on stage and making spaced-out noise, if that is the whole point of it. Kitsch and cheeze can be just as acceptable as industrial and hardcore
Edit: Unfortunately for me, adding the 'ranting' comment to the thread title does devalue and dismiss my personal opinions as being irrelevant when all I'm doing is offering this guy some sound advice. At the end of the day, it really is up to him to make a choice... and to make a sensible choice, one must always have a wider palette to choose from. I guess it also depends on just how much he loves his SK-2100
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Topic: Casio sk-2100 -Ranting about breakout boxes (Read 17463 times)