I think it will become necessary for the areas you outline, particularly in industrial control. Although best practices and standards have been established for electrical systems and mechanical systems, my observations in factory control show that the programming components continue to be the most fragile and buggy. And currently the legislation here lags as well since software systems are typically __not__ certified, except in certain military cases.
This isn't something for Web 2.0 programmers, who can carry on as they have been doing. Instead, it's for folks like myself who have designed the clean-room door locking logic for the CDC when contamination is detected (see "Walking Dead" for a grossly exaggerated example of such a system).
You sound like someone I know. I agree with the above. This cert is definitely applicable for engineering tasks at my place of business and something I will probably pursue. It's very beneficial when proposing on harder tasks. Web dev, which I do as well, generally doesn't reach this level of rigor.
This isn't something for Web 2.0 programmers, who can carry on as they have been doing. Instead, it's for folks like myself who have designed the clean-room door locking logic for the CDC when contamination is detected (see "Walking Dead" for a grossly exaggerated example of such a system).