I agree with "Nobody wants to make the investments or do the hard work....just wake me up when I can get it on sale at Walmart." Remember that even 'normal transistors' were ideas conceived and realized in 'research labs' and definitely not the market. And there are companies which (search for infinera) are doing things like 'photonic integrated circuits' (the signal processing is in electronics and transmission is optical); and they're better off than blowing smoke.