They could probably kill support and power for some of the "dead silicon" platforms they support. If the CPU hasn't been manufactured in the last decade or two, why support it?
"On a regular basis, we find real and serious bugs which affect all platforms, but they are incidentally made visible on one of the platforms we run, following that they are fixed. It is a harsh reality which static and dynamic analysis tools have not yet resolved. "
"Regarding shutting them down, there other social problems.
Yes, we remove about 10 of the architectures. We'd slowly lose the developers who like to work on those areas. They also work in other areas, but ... I suspect they would another BSD that supports them."
Keep in mind that OpenBSD is by the developers for the developers. That it's also useful for a lot of users is just a nice side effect, helpful for testing and funding.
It is until the developers can't afford to keep the lights on.
If OpenBSD isn't exaggerating about shutting down the project, then it seems reasonable to review their policy regarding old platforms and focus on what gives the most return.
If the answer is "NetBSD", let's consider that the expenses in 2012 for the NetBSD foundation were $6k [0].
Either they don't support the architectures the same way or they are spending the money in a smarter way.
[0] http://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2012.html
OpenBSD has a strict policy that supported architectures must be self hosted, tested, and built against HEAD constantly.
Theos answer: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=138973312304511&w=2
Did you see any leaked powerpoint slides discussing MIPS r12k vulns, created in conjunction with SGI ? I didn't ...