I hear you. Coming from a desktop app development background, I never got into mobile development because from far away it looks so constrained. I dream of a phone where I can use its hardware in whatever way I want.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/338898127?re...
It's less powerful than a smartphone, but designed from the ground up for hardware hacking.
disclaimer: I am part of the WiPhone project
The fewer people who see a thing, the uglier the source is.
And as you go down the stack on mobile devices... there are very few people watching, indeed.