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Most equipment that has ethernet ports runs a full-blown operating system (like Linux) in order to implement the network stack. This is why most home routers with ethernet ports run Linux.
Both TCP/IP and USB are very software-heavy. They put all the work into software. TCP/IP is a lot easier to deal with than USB from a software perspective, but when developing an embedded device, the complexity of running a full operating system in practice just leads to frequent crashes.
How often do set-top boxes, wireless routers, etc... need rebooting these days? It's because they run Linux which, while reliable is just vastly more complicated than having the system just doing what it needs to do (like the old days).
RS-232 is really simple. It is easy to write software for it in embedded controllers. Most embedded controllers have built-in RS-232. Some do have embedded ethernet, but I'm not sure if you actually get a TCP/IP software stack with these.
The kinds of microcontrollers used in telescope mounts would have small amounts of RAM (typically 4kb to 128kb) and reasonable amounts of ROM (maybe 512kb to 4MB). Moving to TCP/IP for this equipment at the moment would involve running Linux on the telescope mount (like in a wireless router). Heaps more features....heaps less reliability.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
Have fun,
Doug
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