Open source is absolutely the future, probably of everything. It makes sense, many hands get involved and make the product better. Look no further than Elon Musk for evidence of that. The days of sitting in your castle trying to defend the secrecy of design is over, too much information is the palm of everyone's hand.
In terms of adapting, I'm 50 plus years old, have been tinkering with RC since the 80s, can figure out some intricate stuff for animation, etc, using servos, stepper motors, gearing and linkages...That said, I started up with Arduino and took my GenX approach, bought a bunch of books, went through the learning process. My 15 and 17 year olds came along, did whatever the hell they do and in an hour surpass my progress with a few things they find on their iPhones.
Put this thread together with Brett's regarding the state of the hobby and there's your future, the next generation will be all over this, us dinosaurs either adapt or hoard Tammy MFUs and Rx-18 like canned food after the zombies come.
And as far as underwater basket weaving, I've done plenty of underwater pumpkin carving and that's a mess. Basket weaving at 30 feet sounds like a dream (as long as the water is warm enough to leave off the gloves).