I think the Lutron Caseta system is an example of how to do this in a better way, though it doesn't fully solve the obsolescence problem you mention. It minimizes the size and cost of the potentially obsolete part.

The switches and dimmers themselves degrade gracefully--you'll always have a button to turn things up or down or on or off if the connection fails. And the connectivity is provided by a simple and responsive dedicated radio system, coupled to a bridge. You might need to replace the bridge in the future (to add support for a new protocol or whatever) but the dimmers should last (nearly) as long as the passive switches they replaced.