There seemed to be consensus that if a 'speechrecog' resource was 'both', it
could only be in one of 'normal' or 'hotword' mode at a given time.

Is this a technology / semantic limitation or a licensing limitation?  The
reason I ask is the rationale given on the list seemed to revolve around licensing.

If it is a licensing issue, I would offer the specification should allow
"dual-mode."  If it is a technology issue, never mind :)