[Kevan]

That was my point. Cell phones did the same thing over time. So did the PC.

Everyone will have a 3D printer down the road.

No they won't, much like not everyone has a mobile phone...and before that even not everyone has a computer of some type.

3DP is a manufacturing process, not everyone wants to be a maker so comparing a communications device with a manufacturing device isn't the same thing at all.

[MrFlippant]

Once we have Star Trek like replicator technology, then it will be an appliance in every home, right next to a matter reclamation unit.  ;-)

I'll start planning my hobby money accordingly. :P

[JasonB]

It always looks like such a dirty technology, which seems to create millions of unnecessary vertices, and has no intrinsic understanding of shape and form.

It would surely be simpler, and cleaner to model a shape like that, rather than scan it.

Actually, I think we're still at the stage where you'd probably be better handing it over to a skilled carver and casting it.