[dreamcompiler]

Let me try to summarize part of this: When you're building an ASIC, you have to care about the design at the transistor level because you're going for maximum density, maximum speed, high volume, and economies of scale. When you're building an FPGA, you are only allowed to care about the gates, which is one abstraction level higher than transistors.

In an FPGA, you cannot control individual transistors. (FPGAs build "gates" from transistors in a fundamentally different way than ASICs do, because the gates have to be reprogrammable.) And that's okay because FPGA designs aren't about the highest possible speed, highest density, highest volumes or lowest volume cost.