The failure of modular hardware is one of the reasons I think there's hope in using a higher end DSP and pushing as much functionality as possible into software. I like this approach on Emotiva's new processor. It's going to be running linux. That same DSP is available from TI as part of a developer's kit and already running android with a working touch screen. One would think that if you get sufficiently fast DSPs and over-engineer, you'd be able to keep your customers on the cutting edge a bit longer without a forced migration to new hardware. That would be sooper groovy if it could be done while preserving quality audio/video paths.

Best,