"Immersion" is about script and character and (literary) world building, not technology. The most immersive games I've played were all old enough to have terrible graphics, but they had lots of interesting detail in the world to get lost in.
Oh, right, like Shatner was so much better as a director - that wonderful ST5.
because as of now nobody is capable to produce synthetic sapphire in large sheets. not to talk about reasonable price.
Supermarket scanners have often used synthetic sapphire for some time now (decades?).
The top execs at the biggest companies are far from untouchable - they get fired by the board more often than you think (Balmer is a recent famous example; I think I've worked at 3 companies now where the board fired the CEO and most of his reports).
I'm familiar with the Microchip implementation. This is a 300-MHz-class 32-bit processor. Not particularly modern and not really fertile ground for R&D.
We did have two or three suggestions from commenters of open MIPS processor implementations, some of which are more modern. One uses a proprietary high-level HDL, which I haven't investigated.
Wow, I would have showed up 1 minute late every day just for the entertainment value. But then, I never did pretend classes and grading were going to be important in the real world.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman