About six months ago there was a reddit post about a HDR welding mask (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM517kYS6kY). The thread had many interesting comments, including welders claiming that they didn't need such a mask, because they could already weld well with their sense of feeling and limited vision. To me, this is a really good example of what we will be seeing with a lot of these kinds of technology.
That's the opinion of the generation trained without the technology. What about a new welder who learns by using the HDR mask? Could that improve their performance and productivity overall given equal time and training?