You've vented about this previously.

The audio quality is a great deal better than all the air to air radio I've listened to - and is more than adequate for the job required. Why spend time and money to develop something to replace a perfectly good, well tested, well functioning piece of hardware.

That 'gigantic' blue box houses the speaker for the ground-to-air voice. Make's a great deal of sense to package the two together.

What more reasons do you need. It's cheap, well know, and it works....and it's really not crappy. Better is the enemy of good enough, and this 'antiquated' and 'crappy' system is more than good enough for the job.

HOWEVER... for later ISS useage, there are some developments for a wireless headset for added flexability.

Doug