This was a very good read! Many spot-on observations. I actually started the design of the MRISC32 ISA before I knew about RISC-V (I even called it VRISC first

This was a very good read! Many spot-on observations. I actually started the design of the MRISC32 ISA before I knew about RISC-V (I even called it VRISC first, for "Vector-RISC", but had to give that name up for obvious reasons). Initially I attacked the problem from a software developer perspective, trying to keep an open mind towards various possible solutions, but over the years I have learned lots of things and have scrapped many ideas that simply would not work well in hardware. Developing an FPGA implementation in parallel with developing the ISA certainly helped alot. One of the luxuries of running it as a one-man open source project is that you are not bound by business deadlines and goals, so it's perfectly OK to change your mind half-way in, and let ideas and concepts mature as you learn more. And unlike the very large body that is RISC-V, you don't have to struggle with competing interests either.