The trouble with "golden" chips is a) the manufacturer can EOL it at any time (and I don't think just the OSS people are numerous enough to keep any specific set in production), and b) it freezes things in time. For things that don't change much (e.g. sound cards), no problem, but there's still improvements to be made in other areas.

The focus for FPGAs has traditionally been performance, but I think there's a model where they can be used for both long-lived compatibility and cutting-edge devices living together on the same chip.