Hi,
The issue is not whether electronic items are good or not good, but rather does it serve a purpose on this product? Biological filtration has nothing to do with electronics. None of the electronic features of this pump do anything at all to enhance the ability of the 2078 to process NH4 into NO3. This is why hardliners are vehemently opposed to this feature. As Darrel quite rightly points out, nitrifying bacteria do not care about microprocessor control. They live on the surface of the biomedia and process the chemicals in their local environment. As I mentioned before, the one improvement that would have made this 2078 worthwhile would be to have a more powerful pump or some other way to improve the overall flowrate through the filter.
Eheim's integrity is not in question, however just because something is new, and just because Eheim makes it, it does not mean that it's more useful or will necessarily result in an improvement/ease in your life.
Novelty is used by Eheim and by all product manufactures in order to market products. Our responsibility is to understand the fundamental principles of how our tanks function so that we make the right purchasing decisions. In this way, vendors will be encouraged to make the proper enhancements to their product lines instead of making superficial, or otherwise useless cosmetic changes. I'm hoping, that one reason you don't know anyone with a 2078 is because folks perhaps have come to this realization and have chosen to get better bang for buck by purchasing alternative filters.
I know this sounds harsh (and I'm an Eheim fanboy, believe it or not) but this is the wrong direction. In a high tech planted tank, and even in a non-planted heavily stocked tank, flowrate is of paramount importance. Anything else is trivial pursuit. One reason the FX5 is noisy is specifically because of it's higher flowrate. It's difficult to design a quiet, high capacity filter. I understand that, but when I see this electronic trickery on the new filters it tells me they have decided that it's easier to turn the filter into a gadget showcase instead of spending resources on solving the more difficult problem of filter throughput.
Cheers,