Yeah..too bad Hood would not be an acceptable concept i New Seattle, cool though he was!

Of course, to the others, I honestly see some VERY big advantages to Smart-link systems:

1) The control that allows you to sweep a full auto weapon across a line of mixed friendly and hostiles, and only hit the hostiles.

2) smrt-link only triggers combined with only safeties that mean only the smart link of the soldier issues a particular fire-arm can fire it(or maybe specific members of his squad for things like certain heavy weapons) means that you also reduce the risk of a weapon being picked up by an enemy and used against you.

3) Smart-link goggles can be ripped off a soldier's face, while an implant can't.

4) As said, they can just be an attachment put into a Cyber-eye now, no longer requiring the induction pads in the hands, and the "bulky" processor anymore, or the old Street Sam Catalogue's wire from the forehead to the gun.

Other Cyber implants that I would almost expect to see commonly issued a soldier for various reason:Bio-Monitor, Cyber-memory and an eye camera. These are almost essential: bio-monior to tell when a trooper is dead, the memory and camera for a gun camera type thing.

Things I could there being a degree of reimbursement for: Display/image links for officers(for maps, mission orders, and such), radios and encryption gear(especially for the squad's Radio Man), Cyber arms with gyro-mounts for the heavy weapons person. Note: I do not think these would be TOTALLY paid for..but would be partially reimbursed by the military.

I can see enough use for a Smartlink in civilian life(legitimate use!) that the military might not yank them out if the soldier wants to pay them back for it at the end of his tour(or maybe it is considered an Enlistment Bonus.) 

More specialized cyberware, like spurs, wired reflexes, visual and audio enhancements, would be more likely seen among special forces, and would, more then likely, be paid for out of the soldier's own pockets, just like in RL(at least, last I heard), the restriction on personal weapons are 'relaxed'(as in...Thrown out and pretty much ignored) for many special forces teams.(Heck..look at the Marine Corps Snipers..their rifles are individual made for each sniper! And, I do believe, that when a Marine Corps Sniper leaves the military, he is allowed to keep his rifle, since it was HAND MADE explicitly FOR HIM...)

There is no more cyberware memory in SR4.

It's generally assumed that whatever you have has enough vast storage space to store anything you want, unlike SR4 where Terrabytes of data were needed to store simple video files. Ah, people in the 90's.

No need for Cyber Cameras either as your gun/coat/cufflink/commlink/earring/etc could be a video camera that's got its memory sent along a secure line through the Trix back to homebase.  Or, better yet, a central data storage area, or copied to your coat/cufflink/earring/underwear/backplate.  So they can come recover that memory later.

Cyberware is a no-no for soldiers for lots of reasons.
Cheaper to go with just as good non-implant stuff, so soldiers can share.
Mechanization of the 20th century military probably means even more so in the next century.  So foot soldiers, though not replaced, are merely aids to a vehicular based military.
Small, quiet groups, require skill not implants, though to cut down on weight I'd imagine whatever could be installed would be.
Smartlinks, prolly not still, wires might be a solution but most skilled groups probably wouldn't need wires.

As for costs, everyone keeps noting the lowered costs.  But they are not equivalent to SR3 nuyen to nuyen  1 million nuyen in SR3 is at least worth only 250,000 now in SR4.  Though some things skew that.  Synaptic Accelerators still cost a bungalow, same with Wires.  The percent of your money that the big bad stuff costs is higher now in Sr4 than it was in SR3.  At least the stuff you can get in CG, but a lot of the 'common' items have gone down in overall percentage, and there's less tom-foolery with what you need to get.

Tear pulls out a can opener and a can marked worms.

Against her better judgment, Tear opens the can of worms.

Speaking of the fact that smartlinks incorporate guncams now, can we fire around corners?  The one catch-all modifier for being in cover doesn't really seem to encompass someone just poking their gun around a corner.  There is also no modifier on the books for the awkwardness of holding your gun way out in front of you and not being able to use your shoulders or body to brace it.

So - does that mean you can't do it?  It seems to me that if we're sticking to a non-houseruled beta, it does.  Without appropriate mods to simulate it, we have to make the assumption that, unlike the modern land warrior system, a smartlink does not let you fire at things that can't shoot you back.

It says under the description of smartgun systems that you can use one to fire around corners and you already mentioned that there is a catch all ranged combat modifier penalty for firing from cover, so I'd say you can put those worms away now.