I had a similar experience working in a hardware research group for a few years. We were working in Bluespec, and our process was very software like, in that we

I had a similar experience working in a hardware research group for a few years. We were working in Bluespec, and our process was very software like, in that we'd hack things together and fix bugs when they arose. We were doing okay in terms of getting working hardware quickly, and our process was fairly bad (e.g. we used SVN, often badly). I think a better funded team using modern practices (backed by some more traditional QA) could do really well. And my impression from our interactions with the industry is that hardware and software are so culturally separated that there are hardly any people who end up experiencing enough of both to truly tackle the problems. Hardware people tend to think abstraction is a synonym for inefficiency, and software people often aren't familiar enough with the complications of hardware to abstract it efficiently.