THE FCC rulemaking on set tops, when it came, was less of a rulemaking and more of a consultation – the FCC desperately wants to get this right, and the industry desperately wants to resist all of its efforts. So the FCC played softly, softly making a handful of changes from the original draft and tentatively and apologetically saying that it would really like to make changes if everyone could agree on them. Never before has an FCC request for input rung so true. But whatever its intentions and its softly, softly approach, it intends to wipe out the set top as we know it and move innovation into the hands of device makers, quite simply because pay TV operators…