It does appear to be a castering nose wheel. Ugh. It is a tradeoff, of course. it is less heavy than an air/oil strut assembly, but I don't know how I'd feel about it for anything other than on pavement.
The LCD displays (nevermind the CRTs) in the 15 year old PC12 I was flying, and the 10+ year old TBMs are holding up fine. The tech behind those displays has done nothing but improved since they were manufactured.
I'm going to spitball a guess that the cost of maintenance on those DUs and their associated boxes will be on par with replacing all the steam gauge equivalents in a similar setup. That's not just the sixpack, but will cover any navigation and engine instruments, as well as any annunciations. I think the difference between the two will be a wash.
Yea, there are only two screens, and yea, they do fail. Not often enough that the sky should be falling. I think Cessna is doing the best thing for their potential customers, many of whom, I believe, will be flight schools.
