What about the architecture/design itself, is any of that open? Could I find a design, send it off to china, and have them print off a couple hundred, even at a much higher price than some other processor?
Today it's a bit better, since eg. GF can (in theory) offer recent nodes (eg 22 nm and smaller), which wasn't something you could get ten years ago (back then that'd be 65 nm - most low-volume and custom stuff has been iirc 130 or 180 nm).