> This case in particular is a firmware load into a 3rd party chip, which isn't usually as bad a a binary driver

I'd argue that it's an entirely different kettle of fish. Once the firmware blob is loaded into the chip, the hardware widget works exactly like it would otherwise. If the firmware just lived on a ROM inside the widget, you'd never know it existed.

Protesting closed source drivers I'm all behind for the reasons you mention, but closed source firmware just simply can't aggravate me.