Paul, well put, and I agree with all you points about module building.
But my cage rattling is about "Why is the kernel source not included", not lack or headers. If I could have just rpm/bzipped the source from one of the discs we wouldnt even be here right now.
Although older modules (the one with my NIC is almost 3 years old) still require 'old' build envs- not a defense of them -- instead an argument for providing the source in a convenient fashion so that a user in my case can get up and running with emitting vulgarities.
Ken