> I want to see a modern one, if possible with free software GPU support like for the Mali

The Mali drivers that were just mainlined last month aren't necessarily feature complete like Intel, Via or AMD GPU drivers. Mali is licensed from ARM, which would be a showstopper for US embargoed companies.

> Which is exactly why I want to see MIPS64 that can do all that without hardware acceleration - and much more with it.

If MIPS64 were competitive on price, we would have a plethora of tablets & boards based on it. Currently, dated Mips 24k cores are a $0.10 afterthought that is used to boot and initialize the dedicated ASICs. We've started seeing ARM cores eat the router market though, they're likely delivering more performance for that $0.10.