I was thinking about something similar recently - if the hardware drivers could somehow be abstracted from the rest of the linux kernel (as if...), then suddenly a ton of experimental kernels could have widespread hardware availability.

It would probably shake up the OS ecosystem to no small degree, but I imagine the fresh ideas that could be experimented with by non-experts would be hugely beneficial. Isn't that the big argument against so many new projects? "It looks cool, but the hardware support isn't there."

FreeBSD might be a better target though, since that's specifically designed to be compatible with everything.