Skillwires and Skilljacks, has anyone tried them?, In SR5. Options

[Chrome Head]

I didn't want to derail another recent thread that made me think of this question.

The skilljack costs 0.1E and 20k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per rating. The skillwires cost the same, but the availability restricts them to rating 3 for a starting character. Activesofts are 5k per rating, knowsofts 2k, and linguasofts 1k.

It's really expensive. Let's say you play a cybered face character who wants to have access to extra languages for cheap. You have to pay say 80k for access to rating 4 (and 0.4 essence), plus 4k per extra language.

It's even worse for an activesoft user. My understanding of the rules calls for a skilljack AND a skillwires system to be able to process activesofts. That's a 120k investment, as well as 0.6 essence, which is significant, for the privilege of having to spend 15k for each active skill you want to buy in this way. You can make use of up to 6 skills at once, up to 9 if you run wireless. Let's say you buy six skills: your 18 skill points equivalent (on which no edge can be expanded) have costed you a whopping 210k and 0.6 essence. If you are stupid enough to run skillwires wireless (sounds strange too), these skills can be used with +1 to your limit (wow!).

To me it seems that these expensive 'wares only make sense for NPCs and PCs that become extremely rich (though why not buy a lifestyle and retire? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ), at which point they become truly excellent. You can have 12 extra rating 6 skills accessible for a total cost of 600k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and 1.2 essence. Note that Betaware Synaptic Boosters rating 3 come down to 1.05 essence and 427.5k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) (and better availability too) though, just for comparison.

This being said, has anyone tried them out at character creation? Has anyone even written a character that has a skilljack for SR5?