Bob, I would rather have an indication of the voltage. Spent a few years replacing PA transistors in repeaters that failed because the voltage was below spec, so the old pills would slip out of bias spec and try to draw more current to “make up the gap”. Admittedly, these were old GE Mastr II boxes on UHF (some VHF) without much -if anything- in the way of thermal overload protection. And admittedly, these were on mountaintops where there’d be “other issues”, like building A/C units failing in July in southern AZ; or 6 Mastr II’s on a 12-battery deep-cycle rack, charged by a 20 Amp marine battery tender that dies in the heat.
I finally learned to take along at least 2 VHF PA pills, and maybe 1/2 dozen UHF pills -as well as one each complete PA- on trips upriver. Oh, and lotsa solder-wick - usually, before a transistor died,it would start “lifting the wings” on the emitter side; often taking the circuit traces with it. The use of Solder-Wick to replace trace is ‘not optimal’; but if you’re on top of Black Hill outside of Parker, AZ; and the EMSCOMM repeater is down, ya do what ya gotta do.
Still I’d rather not think about having to semi-regularly “black box” the PA modules in my VHF/UHF mobile Ham rigs! Actually, I have to do that right now on my Alinco mobile; found out that the Kenwood parts price is less for the same Make/Model PA.
With the electronics regularly going into even classics like our Cougars; I’m much more interested in seeing that the electrical system is feeding something close to a 13.8-14.4 VDC spec than seeing that my MSD box crapped out 15 miles outside of Hyder, Arizona. Especially if the old Kenwood 732’s PA module accompnied the MSD on its trip to “Never-Neverland”. Give me a voltmeter every time.