Anyone remember what transmitter that kid had in that old movie
called “Remote” that movie really inspired me to get into R/C stuff. I wasn’t even a teen when I saw it, but all I wanted after seeing that movie was an R/C plane.

I know most transmitters these days have battery run time gauges based on Percentage or Voltage values, what I would love to have is an estimated time remaining in minutes next to the percentage or voltage display, this would be much like any laptop when you move your cursor over the battery icon. This coupled with an audible alert when you get to maybe 30 minutes of transmitter run time left I feel would be very nice. Some of the newer transmitters will beep at you when you get low on batt power, but this can get confused with run time left on your aircraft vs. transmitter power or a neighbors controller.

Mike mentioned a homing device built in with the transmitter/receiver. This would be awesome to have and something that I would like to add with that would be a signal-strength/range-gauge between your transmitter and receiver.

Granted the chances of flying your aircraft out of your range before you lose sight of it almost defeats the purpose of this, it would still be nice to know approximately how far away your aircraft is or if the signal strength is degrading. A nice audible alert for signal degradation/interference would be great. If the approximate distance from the receiver to the transmitter could be displayed, that would also be a big bonus feature. You might even be able to use this to find areas of a flying field that might be prone to interference/glitching possibly from something other than another transmitter on the same or similar frequency.

Otherwise these ideas can be considered purely luxury.
-Mark

#5 is shamefully true. The designs go well beyond bad and sortie dangerously into “camp.”

Great list - one other suggestion from someone with lots of buddy box experience: put the deadman switch to activate the buddy transmitter on the back of the transmitter (for forefinger use) and make it comfortable to keep depressed for 5-10 minutes at a time. The present switches on the front make it impossible for the teacher to keep a thumb on the throttle and they are ridged and PAINFUL to keep depressed for minutes at a time.

Why bright people starting out to make a great product wind up with something that misses all of the above points is a fascinating question.
But we do it all the time. Software, cars, and movies are some examples.