Yes, electronic products are highly optimized. But I'm not sure I agree that using more generic components should make the technology so expensive.Especially i

Yes, electronic products are highly optimized. But I'm not sure I agree that using more generic components should make the technology so expensive.Especially if there was a demand for that. So using a versatile mcu, with lots of ram/flash, dual-core(big/little) for low power, and a rich set of peripherials, together with some affordable fpga, and some greenPak programmable gellybean logic, and some voltage conversion parts could be good building blocks for digital electronics. As for Analog, programmability exists too, in the form of via-programmable analog chips(laser programmable at the factory, I think for volumes of few thousands). That still doesn't cover high-performance parts but that would fit many projects. As for power electronics, I don't know much about that, but I do wonder.