Yeah Doug, telemetry back to the pilot is still illegal but information transmitted back and forth between the TX and RX for the safe operation is perfectly ok. I'm not really sure how telemetry would help anyone out in competition as I tend to watch the plane, not the TX screen but if you had your caller feeding altitude, wings level, distance, airspeed and groundspeed information into your ear it might be helpful.

On the subject of a possible 18MZ, surely a simple software update for the 14MZ for another 4 analogue channels would be easy enough, after all there are 11 discrete analogue (+ the two extra trim clickers) inputs and a boatload of digital inputs on the 14MZ already for 12+2 output...