OK... how about something like a hybrid of what Transmeta and Google's Android OS do, where you have an SoC on a board with its support stuff, and it presents a standardized set of interfaces/specs/etc to the OS via a firmware-level (?) VM sort of setup...?
Yes, I know how awful Transmeta CPUs were -- but not firsthand. Secondhand. My local tech shop pal Jody has (had? Don't remember right now and I'm too lazy to bug him) a Transmeta Crusoe based system at some point... said that it made VIA chips look like a particularly high-end Core i9 Extreme Edition overclocked and tuned to within an inch of catching fire (LOL -- my words, not his). If you're not familiar with VIA... a 1GHz VIA Eden CPU as found in a thin client I'm quite familiar with (the Wyse C-series aka Wyse Cx0 series... their model number scheme is really weird) is about on par with my HP Mini 5102 netbook from 2010.
But, hey, maybe...? I dunno, you guys clearly know this stuff way better than I do, so you tell me!
Off-topic #1 -- coincidentally, the HP Mini has a repair to it I'm quite proud of... Jody gave it to me with a dented lid and a BIOS password. Couldn't do much about the lid, but... SOIC-8 ROM holds the BIOS code. Desoldered, plunked in my (then fairly new) TL866C "MiniPro" programmer I'd gotten a few months prior for my birthday... boom! No more password. First real SMD/SMT solder job I did.
Off-topic #2 -- more interesting, probably, to you guys would be how I came to be so familiar with the Wyse C-series clients in the first place. Go look up bug #91966 in the bug tracker for the "openchrome" Xwin driver ;) warning, it's quite a long read... over 100 posts/comments... not kidding!