I really does bother me that for a "FEATURE REQUEST" topic its suggested that we should look in the 3rd party realm or that we need to hire outside devs.. Isn't that oxymoronic?
No, I suggested the OP to either give a constructive feature request, OR that they hire a developer. If they submitted a feature request with what needs to be changed / added, how it should behave, how it should integrate with other addons, etc. its of actual use and its worth taking a look at. Just saying 'I want this', but not explaining the how accordingly and referring to another paid solution to be cloned, is just annoying.
They get hundreds of requests saying, A has to be like B, B like C, etc. This is a very time consuming proces to say the least, so if you at least provide them with a CONSTRUCTIVE feature request, they can take it into consideration immediately, instead of adding it to their huge backlog of wishes.
Also, third party integrations are very hard, as they change all the time. By adding recurring billing to be handled, they will have to rewrite *ALL* payment service provider connections and verify whether they support recurring billing.
For now, this requires a lot to be done, a lot of breaking changes, and a whole set of other problems. I'd expect them not to add it anytime soon, but rather save it till V5 or something.