Top of the head answer:

Pro's
1)  A lot more capital to work with.  Heck, COM's should
    really be at $24-36billion market cap. right now. At
    it's present $12billion and being down in the dumps,
    it's still always referred to as the #2 networking company.
    (Those Ascend guys probably hate hearing that.)

2)  Good/great expertise from USRX personnel.
    I think they're the ones that came up with the
    Palm Pilot.  This is one example of their craftiness.

3)  Inherited USRX's distribution system (D.Lawrence
    mentioned that one time - wish he would expand
    on it sometime....)

4)  Eric B.'s a pretty crafty guy (IMO).  For example,
    his plan to counter CSCO says a lot to me.  He's
    a counter-puncher and knows not to get directly
    in the big guys way;  better to work around him.

Con's
1)  Modem standard's problem.  I'm not sure how
    much these problems could have been prevented or
    at least anticipated better.  

2)  Problems with financial statements.  Don't know
    if this was a result of the merger.  Don't know
    how much of this could have been prevented...
    Nothing illegal was done, but looked ethically
    bad.  Then again, I'll bet lots of companies did
    this thing - business as usual - and COMS had to
    be the unfortunate first one to be made an example
    of.  Looks like Eric B. handled it well, and in
    the long run, the company will be stronger for it.
    Cleaner books, better tracking of inventory, and
    costs were lowered as a result of this mess.

3)  Modems will eventually be dead technology.  Then
    again, USRX has future technology up its sleave...

Overall, looks like it's was the right thing to do.  Had
to merge with someone - who would have been better?

OK, I got it started. (Could be better...) It's getting
late, and I gotta give my brain a rest so I can go to
my day job tomorrow, and keep wondering about COMS at the same
time.

Joe