Is Kent's attitude professional?

I don't think it is. However, I can sympathize with how he got this way. Texas has complete de-regulation of positional tolerances, and putting up with obvious nonsense, in the surveying profession.
If I lived there, I would not like having a lowballing, wham bammer, out wreaking havoc on good work. I once did a fine job of surveying some land with total station, carried elevations too. Got tight closure. Multiple loops.

Then, another surveyor came in, and REAL FAST surveyed some land, up against my work, and published stuff that was loose as a goose. (he was an RTK practitioner!)
I understand where he is coming from. Kent is a drowning man, trying to do his best, in a sea of practitioners, whose quality of work is poor, sloppy, loose as a goose. This keenly gives OTHERS the advantage. They can tie his work, and trust it, but he cannot tie their work, and trust it. This sets the stage for his hateful diatribe. I would also say that it is less than professional. Yet, I can see what is happening.

What is the answer?
Kent shows signs of not budging at all, off his premise of "My numbers work, and yours don't, so yours are garbage" (In his Least Squares paradigm). Once again, I can sympathize.
I know how it feels.
At present, (If I had a Texas License, and I had a mind to) I could go to Texas, Buy some Standard RTK GPS gear, and survey all over the area of practice, where Kent works. And, churn out plats, and pins, and flagging, and essentially drive Kent out of business. He would maintain a less than profitable shop, until he gave up, and closed. And, then I could up my prices, and live happily... Until somebody did it to me, and hence we get the statement "Race to the bottom".

Because there is "No law against that".

So, what is the answer?

Kent has not taken the TIME and ENERGY necessary to figure out HOW to use RTK, and get solid answers in canopy. Now, granted, RTK is INHERENTLY less accurate than his current means. HOWEVER we MUST quantify this. (Remember Kent is a fan of quantifying things?) I have the DISCIPLINE and UNDERSTANDING and ABILITY to USE my OLD RTK system, (Topcon Legacy E) and generate work, that systematically has less than 0.20' Positional error of EVERYTHING (That would be the worst, shot, in a year of work) And, BECAUSE I take the time, MOST of my work would contain 0.06' per shot, and up to 0.12' per shot, but most of it would be in the LESS THAN A TENTH per shot.
My shot breakdown would be something like this:
50% of shots, > less than 0.06' positional error per shot.
70% of shots, > less than 0.10' Positional error per shot.
80% of shots, > less than 0.12' Positional error per shot.
90% of Shots, >less than 0.15' Positional error per shot.
100% of Shots, >less than 0.20' Positional Error per shot.

Now, this is DERIVED through a fairly rigorous mechanism, of MULTIPLE shots per point. TIME in the woods.

These are my error estimates, based on years of messing with it. IF I want to take the time, I can re-observe the poor ones, and tighten them. I usually did.

The BIG errors, ( < greater than 0.50' to 10') are the product of BAD INITIALIZATIONS. This is the one that potentially bugs me the most. So, the ONLY way to trap these errors, is to SUBSTANTIALLY change the satellite configuration, and RE observe the point. This means RE-observe at a later time. OR, depending on the ENVIRONMENT, change the rod height, and re-observe. This works well, with lots of horizontal multipath. Or, with VERTICAL multipath, you must move horizontally. (Example: I had a shot on a 1/4 corner, that took forever. I moved over, 5 ft. and re observed it, and compassed and taped to the previous on. Fit within 0.075'. OK we are good.)
IF you are not performing, these checks, you are going to have slop of between 0.3' and a foot on a frequent basis. And, occasionally, you re going to have the 7' bad init bust.
Nobody is going to SUE over 0.50' foot, or even a foot, most of the time. But, it is too sloppy. Not professional.

But, the big one, can bite hard.

Then, the JAVAD came along, and AUTOMATED this quality checking process, and reduced the maximum error potential. It also gave me PPK on EVERY boundary point. My goal is EVERY shot less than 0.05' error. I mean ABSOLUTE error, not cumulative. That is another nice thing about radial surveying, is errors are SPECIFIC to a given point, not cumulative, as in total station work. This might mean that I tie a barn corner, and it is off by 0.3', and I do not care.

HOWEVER, they must be managed. The only way to do this, is TIME on each point. Let me say that again: The only way to do this, is TIME on each point. The only way Javad gear can FIND it's errors is TIME ON POINT. It is just more automated.

For a RTK corner set, use FLOAT to get within 3 to 5 feet. Get a fix, and store the point. Inverse to the corner. Carefully use an indexed for declination compass, and box tape. Set a DIMPLE at the corner, and MOVE the GPS to the dimple, and RE observe. IF it fits within 0.10' you don't HAVE the "Big one", as long as you re-initilized the GPS between the shots. With these, that show to miss by 0.15' or more, change something, (rod height, or pole location) and re-do it. I had one to set by a HUGE pine tree. Got a fairly solid fix, 10' offset. Used compass and tape, and set rebar, (drove it in 0.25') and moved the pole, and repeated. (Staying 10-12' from the pine) repeated until it was coming down to less than a tenth. Total time on this point was around 1 hr. But, I left satisfied, that I had actually set the corner. (I also got SEVERAL BAD FIXES that were wrong by 3', 5' and 7'). BTW, this was with the LEGACY E gear.

This is why the JAVAD is nice. It does a VERY rigorous QC, on it's own. My maximum time on a point to date is around 55 minutes. I got 3 verified shots. And, a PPK observation. The Javad system is the BEST there is at this point. Again, I am working with a TARGET accuracy of 0.05'. I know I don't always achieve this, but I do try, and take the time to do it.

There are places that Total station is the best. But, not as often.

So, my methods are inferior to Kents. But, the error margin is still within min standards, and meets the needs of most clients. Nobody wants to pay 1000 dollars, to tighten things by a few hundredths per point.
Now, Kent lives in TEXAS, where there are no positional tolerances for surveys. He is mad about it. I understand.
But if you can live with a tenth of error, and occasionally up to 0.16' of error, (when the Javad does this, you have WARNING of large error potential, so you can take MORE time, and clean that up) so these are the reasons we like it.

Now, if you use other GPS brands, and you are NOT doing all these quality checks, and you work in poor environments, (NOT suitable for GPS) you WILL have errors of 0.5' to 10', but you will NOT KNOW WHEN you are doing it.

So, ALWAYS double check RTK. Always spend TIME on each point. Be aware of the limitations of your tools.

One things I can say, is I KNOW a practitioner, who said: "I paid 40k for this gear, it had BETTER be right". No. I don't care how much you pay for a meal, you can choke and die on it. I don't care how expensive your truck is, you can still wreck it.

ALL GPS LIES. Javad included. And, you can get in trouble FAST if you turn off the quality checks that it has.

Any kind of bad environment, gets thorough quality checks.
And, other brands lie too, but I don't have one of them, to test. I'd have to TEST whatever gear I got.

So, keep in mind the GPS LIE.

It is like a child... he won't lie, until he wants to! And, you had better check your gps. And, learn how to do it. Or, do it the Kent does. STAY OUT OF THE WOODS WITH GPS.

I hope my honest tutorial helps some, who don't know, or understand... GPS in the woods ALWAYS lie, some of the time. Learn to check it.

And, I hope my post explains some of the differences between "Good" and "Bad" GPS practice. And explains some of the lately ruckus with me, and Kent, and others, who are dealing with some of the bad practices out there.

One more thing, OCCASIONALLY all GPS lie in the field too. So, you MUST spend TIME on POINT. With all gear.

I could go further in depth... Like what time of day GPS is prone to lie... when GPS constellations are marginal etc, but we can save that for later.

Nate