[jagrsw]

While I get the sentiment, implementing full Unicode support directly in the keyboard firmware would pose challenges. Consider mechanical keyboards where keys are swappable; you'd need a mechanism to inform the firmware of the current configuration, either through dip switches or a separate firmware tool. It's not as straightforward as it might seem.

[treyd]

That and also it wouldn't be able to express modifier key state, locks, etc, so it would have to coexist with the existing scancode-based input methods.

[cjs_ac]

If you represent Unicode codepoints as unsigned 32-bit integers, you have the eleven high bits free for representing modifier keys. You can even represent changes of state for the modifier keys without a normal key press by sending the modifier bits with a NUL character.