See, my solution would be this:
A custom card, be it PCI-eXpress, or standard PCI add-on card. This card would among other things, be fitted with a CF (or similar, CF fan here) adapter and card, which would hold OS files.
Several possibilities exist, so let me share some:
-OS BACK on a chip. Be it a CF (easily updatable, and huge in terms of capacity) or other flash technology. This is one of the hottest things the Amiga had going for it, IMO. And if a network card can steal boot priority on a x86 system, so could "The Amiga" card.
-Backward compatibility. OK, not likly to be popular, but one of many adapters that could hook up to the add-on card: serial drive adapter for all us external DD drive owners.
-Controlled envirnment: Let's face it - one reason the mac platform is currently a good choice is becuase of the physical differnce in number of 3rd party vendors. For a company to support/create drivers for all the possible COMMON cards you might have plugged into your system, could bankrupt a company, or lead to non-stop technical support calls. However, via the "core" of this Amiga Card, they could again attain control over the x86 platform, should they choose. A/V COULD be onboard. There could be headers for other cards to plug into PCI slots(mainly for power) but physically communicate with the Amiga Card either through the system bus, or via a direct connection.
Doing this would place the Amiga/AmigaOS in the realm of the common people with x86 systems, while ensuring that it isn't simply a "Linux-like OS", that you dual-boot to instead of Windows when you "need" to. You would have a "true" Amiga system.
