@Sandal_Hat

Don’t pretend the example I gave makes no financial sense; it would be like arguing with someone that 2 is not less than 3, it’s pointless.

Now, I understand what you are saying but you are also conflating the issues. A reconfigurable system that costs less, and consumes 5x less space and energy; but has comparable hash rates for a given algorithm is preferred for mining, and that’s the issue. If such a system exits, it would push out the less efficient system.

As an aside, I know that dollar for dollar in the long run for mining, FPGAs lose to GPUs, and GPUs lose to ASICs, but it doesn't happen overnight