1) The Hummer is a great vehicle with outstanding cross-country mobility, but it was designed as a support vehicle and shoe-horned into the role of recon platform because the US Army armor branch has a terrible record of designing its own cavalry vehicles. The Sheridan and M114 come to mind, and their expense/limited usefulness were prime reasons why Fort Benning was designated as the lead for the IFV/CFV concept which ultimately led to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
2) Armored Cavalry is really the end-state of an army's doctrine of how the reconnaissance battle will be fought. In the US Army, the Corps heavy cavalry regiment fights the deep battle with supporting assets and slice elements from Army aviation, artillery and air forces. I mention the caveat "doctrinally" because there is only one true armored cavalry regiment left in the US Army, the 3rd ACR (Braves Rifles.) I would argue that the 3rd ACR is the world's most powerful armored force for its size and the ACR's have always been inofficially called "mini-armored divisions" because of their organic tube arty and aviation assets and for their heavy punch in combat power in the line squadrons.
3) Armies should be designed and formed to fight across a wide array of contingencies. By extension, the cavalry ought to be equipped and trained to carry out a variety of missions from peacekeeping to the heavy force battle. The issue with optronics/sensor packages to replace or heavily supplement the human element in the force carries huge weight. For instance, when the US Army replaced the Bradley with the Hummer in most cavalry units, I felt then, and I still do, that it was a step backwards in our warfighting ability. The Bradley was equipped with a 3 and 12 power ISU, two sets of binos and a spotting scope, PVS-4, and a couple of sets of PVS-7s/14's. Going back to the Hummer was a real step backwards in losing the sustained thermal capability and long range of the ISU.
The trouble with many of the emplaced sensors is that you don't have time to put them int he ground. We had a system in the scout platoons called the Platoon Early Warning System. It was these bags with spike sensors that you went out and stuck in the ground in dead space. There was a control box that you set-up in the CP and theoretically could detect movement from the ground sensors. In 10 years, I never saw a single instance where we actually emplaced PEWS either in Europe or stateside. In regards of your priority of work, you have to camo the vehicles, get the hot loop out, etc, etc. A lot of ya'll have been in armor so you know what I mean here. There just isn't enough time.
4) Cavalry has the broadest battle book of possible missions. It is tasked with fighting the covering force battle, conducting a significant piece of the deep battle, economy of force missions, the classic recon missions of zone/area and route recons, etc, etc. The choice of vehicles and the organic mix within the regiment/squadron are critical to whether or not the cavalry can successfully execute its mission. Does cavalry fight or does it observe and report? This is the essential question based on an army's doctrine that has to be answered. To my way of thinking, cavalry is a hard-hitting armored force with the radio and data nets to provide long range commo. Pushing the tanks forward, either op-conned or organic is the only way to go. When I was in a battalion scout platoon, we habitually worked with a tank section attached to our scout platoon and the tanks gave us a significant edge.
