Josh, thank you, your remarks (and those of Matt and Eduard) are helping me to understand better.
For some context, please look at
this graphic that shows the results of the question
"Which of the following best describes your current dominant form of metro-aggregation?"
The left bar chart shows *NOG reponses;
the right bar chart shows responses obtained through market research among Tier 1 and regional operators.
Operator group respondents overwhelmingly selected "routed optical networks over Ethernet without ROADMs".
Now, during an interview I held to assess the answers,
the interviewee (an experienced network engineer) questioned the meaning.
I realized that I may have been conditioned by Cisco marketing (I attend a few webinars), and
I wanted to understand what respondents understood.
Summarizing an answer to your observation, I was conditioned by Cisco marketing.
Cheers,
Etienne