I'm of two minds about it because I know a lot of those types of guys and I don't think they'd have it any other way, but it also kinda presents a pretty high barrier to joining the industry if a majority of the shops expect you to come with $10k+ of your own tools and toolboxes (unless you're a kid just starting out, then, at least where I've seen, there are like, some communal tools you can use as you build up your own collection, and you can borrow from coworkers).

Its just sort of this long tail remnant of a time when these sorts of guys were fully treated as semi or fully independent craftsmen not just cogs or "technicians", I think. Sort of an extension of this american yeoman farmer phenomenon into a different industry. And that was probably a better/more desirable position for those craftsmen to be in. But in a modern context idk if that holds up, and clinging onto the trappings of independence like that may not really be in their best interests anymore, in the way that it ties them to an employer lest they have to pay a pretty penny to move all of their tools, etc.

Being a full-on wage slave would give them more mobility in terms of job hopping but less ability to take their tools and go home and just operate out of their own garage independently.

Anyhow I'm really not the one to make this argument, and I think I've had it before on this very website, but I suspect you'd find most people (in the industry at least) do like it the way it is