The amazing price comparison you mention comes from where the market place is. Everybody uses these embedded processors for almost everything now days.....thus the chip companies put all their energy for designs and semiconductor process development into these new chips that they know will sell.

The specific function IC's such as the UART you mentioned are built on processing lines that cost more to operate than the newest technologies, thus the pricing you will see in the end cost of chips.

Today it is unlikely that too many semiconductor companies would venture out to design a better single chip UART or a TIMER. And as time goes by more and more of these chips will fall by the way side to become once again small grains of silicon along the road. This is one of the reasons that myself and others here will suggest to people here to re-consider when they tell us they are using parts like 8255, 8253, 6845, CTC, etc etc.

Michael Karas