> A PhD is about doing novel work and pushing the state-of-the-art, you can't get a coursework based PhD.

That's the USA philosophy of advanced degrees; it does not reflect the practice of every country.

And given standard scholarly impact statistics for completed theses, it arguably doesn't reflect reality either. Maybe we should start admitting that most PhD candidates haven't made a significant contribution to the state-of-the-art, most future candidates aren't going to, and the nominal requirement to do so isn't helpful?

A Ph.D. is mainly about research, the courses you take leading up to your dissertation should still teach you more in-depth technology to help insure you are an expert in the field of the degree at the graduate level. Without this in-depth course load you will have weak research and would not have a good in grasp to be able to create anything new, state of the art that helps push the industry forward through advanced research along with being employable.

If you come in the door with these credentials you will be highly qualified to be at least a principal cyber engineer. Your in depth research would makes serious waves in the industry and with real world experience it would be an amazing win-win situation for you and the company that hires you, or even better your own business doing cyber research.