Many students need to take flights at least once a year if they study out of state/country or if they have some kind of internship program (my school made us alternative between school and work every 4 months, for instance). Even the smallest of the SFF cases (that support discrete GPUs) cannot be practically packed into a luggage for flights.

I know this because I own a SilverStone FTZ01 [1] and have tried to take it with me on a flight back home in May, but ended up giving up on it because it was simply too difficult to adequately protect in a luggage without going over weight limits.

A much smaller chassis with just a discrete GPU + power supply probably won't have this problem, and as a result, for my use case at least, it would be a much more practical option.

[1] http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=533

What is needed is a small sized amplifier box using thunderbolt 3.

If something could be built around an AMD Radeon R9 Nano, then it would be a serious force to be reckoned with.