Needless to say, like many other people, I freelance in IT and having affordable lab equipment at home is a big plus. It also steers my purchasing recommendations - if a vendor makes it easy for me to learn and deploy their gear, they end up getting more recommended.
To be fair, the whole licensing process is screwy. We bought a ZD1200 and a dozen APs a few weeks back. The extra AP licenses took OVER A WEEK to be processed by Ruckus, causing us to miss a few deadlines. We had all the equipment and we were just waiting on some guy in a cubicle to "approve" licenses we already paid for. All new equipment, just to be clear. I'm told by our reseller and an Arris rep that long turnarounds on releasing licenses that are paid for is common.