It can be done and it can be done by EE students. I recall while working on my undergraduate EE degree, the local IEEE chapter at the school would put on a contest each year during Engineering Week. The objective was to take a black box and generate a schematic of what was inside the box. The first to come up with the right schematic won. I also know this is a common technique to reverse engineer a system. So given the fact the boards are accessible (not in a black box) and signals can be traced, I bet some bored electrical engineer could "troubleshoot" this board and recreate its functionality. In fact, I bet they could improve it and even reduce much of the capability down into smaller, more robust FPGAs or microprocessors so less expensive replacements could be manufactured. Its not my cup of tea, but I've met plenty of guys who might have fun with something like this.