Here's the real problem: DEC was doing hand designed processors to get a 20% improvement when everybody else could get 100% by waiting 18 months and riding Moore's law.

What made this possible? Chemechanical polishing.

Why? Because you suddenly had more than 2 layers of metal.

Synthesis systems suck rotten eggs when they don't have lots of routing resources.

Once you had 5+ layers of metal, standard cell synthesis systems are a NoBrainer(tm). You make alternate layers orthogonal and put power and ground on the topmost level.

At that point, anyone not riding the synthesis train was roadkill.