The XTALSs are not user accessible.

The FCC is constantly balancing between helping business bring products quickly/cheaply to US market and taking a hard line with enforcing the regulations. Often the FCC will allow something like the xtal being easily accessible because the manufacture ensures it will be glued in or covered with a little snap in plate… so technically, it isn’t accessible from the outside anymore. This benefits all of us as it allows for the maker to save design/support costs, i.e. cheaper radios. But, the easier access does not mean the FCC has implied the user can now change the xtal.

The FCC can and has reversed their decision on this stuff and made it retroactive if vendors or users abuse the easy access. I know of one case where a hand held mobile radio manufacturer had to recall and retrofit products because the ability for users to change the operating frequency was being abused. The FCC can revoke the type certification. Do you really want that? Making it now illegal to not only change the xtal, but illegal for most R/C users with low end radios to use them at all because certification was revoked?

The problem here is not the FCC, or their regs, or approving items that make it cheaper for the manufacture to bring them to market. The problem is users that think they know how to interpret FCC regulations and somehow conclude they can change the xtal because they found some loop hole. There is no loop hole, only incorrect and incomplete interpretations of the regs.