@ori I was confused about which toot of mine you were speaking to when I replied. I had ATMEGA AVR (as found in Arduino & many of our peripherals) on mind. I was surprised by how low-powered I found that to be when I looked into it, but it delivers the I/O its market demands!
Nevertheless I agree with you!
We could in theory design, rather than evolve, a much nicer hardware platform for us to build upon. But that'd be a massive investment noone wants to make, when we already have *something*.