I agree with you on all points.

For what it's worth, Boston recently moved to the "Charlie Card", which is pretty much exactly like an Oyster card, except we don't tap out.

We used to have simple token-operated turnstiles, and we spent millions of dollars to upgrade.

Did you know that there is absolutely zero improvement from a user perspective from using a card than a token? I mean, I STILL can't figure out WHY we switched.