What we need is ways to avoid the kernel for networking memory, I figured Oracle would have realized this for Java by now but they are dragging their feet!
That's absolute nonsense. There's so many platforms, Android/iOS, where applications are compartmentalized: local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerabilities is what enables a rogue application (or remote code execution into one, such as a browser/chat), into full control of the device and its data. Sometimes LPEs are needed to achieve some level of persistence. In VMs, a guest LPE is frequently needed to interface (and exploit) directly the emulated/paravirtualized devices and VM-escape into the host OS.
Yes, it is a big deal.
The opposing line of thought is defense in depth. The idea being that "a hard shell but soft and mushy on the inside" is a fragile setup and only needs one thing to go wrong.