There is the project Valhalla now, https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/valhalla/Main, aiming to bring value types and eventually generic specialization and reification.

The work on that project has been impressive, and there is now an experimental EA build called LW2 where you can play with value types: https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/valhalla/LW2

Will this solve everything? No. The char type is hosed. But there will be an opportunity to e.g. get a new Character.