Enlighten us to these drawbacks. On the surface I am inclined to say the pros would outweigh the cons. Compared to other professions, software engineering seems to struggle the most with H-1B/Green Card abuse and interview processes. Job interviews are absurdly different (easier) for doctors, lawyers, et al. than for software engineers, and that I believe is because of the licensure. I do think licensure adds overhead to an industry (e.g., malpractice insurance, governing bodies, license management) and that probably discourages anyone with real power (like FAANG) to pursue it and try to set it as an industry-wide standard. Most software engineers in the U.S. are making around $130-140k, but lawyers and medical doctors usually make significantly more (perhaps because of the licensure overhead - I'm not sure if malpractice insurance is included in a medical doctor's salary- I would imagine it's not and is taken out of each paycheck like any other industry's health insurance benefits).

I don't think there are more grey areas in software engineering than in medicine. The difference is the feedback loop of the outcome - if you design a dopamine slot machine you will ruin the generation and that's a long arc.