BladeRunner ... because not all of your real-world Wheatnet IP facility is going to be purely Wheatstone!
There is an increasing number of third-party manufacturers of Wheatnet-equipped devices. Tieline™, for example, has a Merlin TLR5200 and the amazing Genie Distribution with WheatNet-IP - models which can contribute three Wheatnet IP stereo channels simultaneously via ISDN, IP or POTS. But all of these channels still have to be routed to the correct studio inputs and the clean feed channel be returned to the correct part of the correct codec - the new magic still needs solid old-school engineering. Additionally, the demands made by each studio's programme requirement may change throughout the daily and weekly broadcast schedule.
Other non-Wheatnet-IP legacy codecs will need even more controlling, having individual dialling and/or RS-232 / IP/ GPIO requirements. They may also need mono analogue circuits routed to stereo Wheatnet-IP audio ports, as well as matching clean feeds to be returned to their inputs. These are typical requirements in the real world, but, by definition, it’s outside of the control that the Wheatnet can bring.
BladeRunner was conceived and built to assimilate non-Wheatstone-IP equipment into the Wheatnet and to make Wheatnet-IP natives shine. If you were a Trekkie and thought of BladeRunner as ‘Locutus of Wheat’, you’d be on the right track!