JdeBPIt's very different in the world outwith BT, which you have barely touched upon. #VirginMedia's cable modems don't need add-ons, as the ones that have been rolled out for years now have #RJ11 sockets.
And lack of pulse dial as a misfeature is a bit of a stretch. I haven't needed pulse dialling for any of my CPE since the 1980s. I even had a BT-to-RJ11 adapter ready from the 1990s.
The major problem is the lack of 999 service in a power outage.