a danish company managed to create a common phrase in the Danish language for "universal' beliefs with the slogan "everything is possible in a gas oven". I will leave it to you to imagine the jokes.

You, Jez have a similar slogan "everything is possible in a FPGA" and, while, I have no doubt about your statements (at least the technical ones) being correct in a crazy way (sorry, I could not help that one) there is the development time involved which I would consider restrictive if the volume of the production is small. You can save a lot of money paying $30 for 5 chips compared to the development time to do the same with five $5 chips.

I will use a programmable chip (FPGA/CPLD) when applicable, but do not consider it the answer to all the maidens prayers. The number one advantage I see (beyond replacing 14 discrete gates and latches with one chip) is that it is so much easier to fix a "wiring mistake" in a FPGA than on a PCB.

Erik