I find that I'm more reckless on my horse after playing Red Dead Redemption.

A lot of these smart meters utilize 802.15.4 (2.4Ghz) radios running a Zigbee stack. 802.15.4 is DSSS like 802.11. The same vulnerabilities exist in both topologies. There are two pieces to this system. The utility area network and the home area network. They are generally required to be separate bands. For instance, A Zigbee HAN and a cellular backhaul. The architecture of the 'system' would limit a hacker to individual homes. Replay attacks I understand are particularly successful but they don't allow you to propagate back to the utility to shut down entire neighborhoods. It's just as dangerous as having a wifi router in your home.

This is not necessarily true. A lot of homes will not have remote disconnect, but it's absolutely available on meters today. Especially smart meters.

I don't disagree that mathematicians make great software engineers, but I think most of the great software engineers in the past were physicists and electrical engineers.

I wonder what this means exactly. Just graduating with a degree in a tech field doesn't automatically make you capable. This is one of the problems with education. In Electrical and Computer Engineering, I found many more people drawn to the major simply because of the high starting salaries. They weren't necessarily interested in contributing anything to the scientific world. I don't consider them capable. Also, many of the engineers I know have severe communication problems. They are not what I would call capable either.