What if you could build the software and the device to run it all at the same time?  What would that do to your imagination?  Right now, when you want to write an application, chances are good you have the device configuration already established.  But what if you had the opportunity to design the target device and its capabilities at the same time.  Sounds a little chicken-and-egg but my feeling is that, if it were possible, we could start seeing a new type of engineer, a hybrid software/hardware engineer, that could design new categories of applications quickly.