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My 2c
I think there are probably two types of Tinkerers..
There's the one's on restricted Budgets, limited resources, but keen to be able to "do something". In the early days these were the guys who built their own telescopes ( grinding the mirrors from scratch), even building their own eyepieces (??!) as well the the mountings, drives etc etc. The lack of commercial equipment ( at affordable prices) continued to drive this process. Just look at what John Dobson did.....
Then there's the "cloudy night" guys... nothing else to do...( BTW these seem to make up the majority over here in the UK) who adapt, modify and "improve" their telescopes and equipment. Adding finders, changing focusers, collimating and re-collimating the scope, adding adaptors etc for CCD imaging etc etc. They always seem to be fiddling around with something!
The bottom line: we are a group of interested, dedicated amateurs and it's always been the role of amateurs (look at all the inventions and discoveries made by the Victorians during the Golden Age of astronomy) to dabble, fiddle and keep asking questions.....
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