[evgen]

It seems to me that the problem with this answer is that we have already paid the up-front cost of these offline systems over generations and so you are supposing that the switching cost is less than the ongoing maintenance of what already exists. There may be efficiency gains to be realised somewhere, but unless there are incremental and quantifiable advantages at each intermediate step from here to there I can't see this existing outside very small (albeit potentially lucrative) niches.