Honestly, my actual problem is that I'm so ensconced in a particular mindset from being both an amateur military historian and an avid wargame player, but who doesn't talk about those things often in spaces not also 100% colonized by war nerds, that "recon" has moved from "one of the tentpoles of successful military operations" to "so self-evidently important that one forgets about it as a separate concept because not having it means you lose, full stop." in my brain meats.
@archangelzeriel @cstross The pros have that exact same problem of the head-meats.
Also getting a bit fixated on the how of doing the thing as should be presently customary, which is why cavalry-in-a-can comes as a shock.
(I maintain that the easiest and best way to think of drones is just that; they have all the functions and the same limitations as classic "horse guns and foot" cavalry. And the mental images of a bunch of grunts lugging around a can of compressed horse soldier are funny.)