and I'll pay the 25 grand for a multi-project wafer somewhere,
If you could add another zero to that sum, you might want to look at doing an altera hardcopy. Its the logical next step after FPGA; significant power consumption and (given enough volume) cost advantages, without the excessive NRE of a full custom asic. Should also be much easier to develop, if you have a working FPGA implementation, and a bundle of cash, you have all you need.