I f-ing love these guys. Factorio is such a great game. I've only just started figuring circuits out in earnest, so it's great to see they're still iterating and improving the systems.
Only two circuit channels on radars is rather restrictive. It definitely won't be usable as any kind of grand open bus as I'd like it to be. Perhaps they think that's too overpowered.
At least unlike Space Exploration, the transmitter and receiver buildings are the same, and not specialized only for send/receive. It's also tied directly into a building you'll be making anyway.
It's a pure win on all accounts, just less of a win as I'd have liked.
I didn't compare it to modded content. I just wished for more circuit channels. The fact that at least one mod exists that offers this is irrelevant.
There is very much a noticable feel difference when comparing native engine features and content that sometimes has to awkwardly wrestle around the limitations of the mod API. A first-class feature implementation baked directly into the engine with its own interface is almost always an equally good or strictly superior experience to modded offerings, provided that the features are identical. So, given the opportunity for a feature I desire that a mod provides to become a native feature, I will never not root for that opportunity.