I agree that while ASUS's implementation might not be "it", and I'd imagine that if they released that today it'd be a proprietary mess, they have the right ide

I agree that while ASUS's implementation might not be "it", and I'd imagine that if they released that today it'd be a proprietary mess, they have the right idea that there's a lot to gain from moving I/O off the motherboard to expansion cards/slots. Right now I'd bet most PC enthusiasts barely use any of the motherboard's integrated I/O except for USB and maybe ethernet. Mini-ITX is especially limited by ATX's growing pains - just a single PCIe x16 slot for expansion. If instead of the integrated I/O we had several Mini-PCIe slots to pick and choose I/O like Thunderbolt, wifi, 10GbE, optical audio, etc, I think there'd be a much more vibrant PC ecosystem and motherboards could see much longer longevity.