Absolutely NOT digital. Thats crap. You can to that in most post production apps. All it does is pre-crop the image. Optical zoom is far superior in quality.It would be interesting getting zoom to work/look right on a Phantom. Digital vs. Optical. Time will tell!
How about an attachable lens adapter (like the current flock of ND), that adds a fixed zoom. The standard lens is 94 degrees I think and thats close to a standard 18mm lens(100mm). A high quality fixed magnifier that narrows it (zooms in) to say 60 (roughly like a 35mm) or even 45 (roughly like 50mm) degrees would be a stopgap and give people substantially more options than they have now. We could attach whichever one we wanted before flight.
I haven't used them in years because I have macro lenses ($1k +) but I have a set of screw on (attaches to filter ring) closeup lenses. That sort of thing only not closeup focus but for magnification.
Variable zooms are heavy, I get that. The fixed zoom adapter would be lighter and cheaper.