..I'm sure anyone who has something to do with lighting has been to PLASA..
I'm in the very beginning of lighting controller project too. According to my calculations it is still possible to occupy one or several 8052-s with running and calculating patterns/sequences while one is controlling all the traffic. Having under consideration the speed of DMX transmition the timing shouldn't be a problem for 8-bits.
But here speaks a man who does not know about 16-bit controllers nor your revolutionary ideas..