I've had the same kind of doubt in the Android space. Don't really know why none of the Chinese manufacturers didn't just decide "we'll ship Cyanogenmod [or stock Android] by default". ZTE seems to come closest by shipping pretty stock Android but they don't seem to make it very easy to hack. Hopefully the new Cyanogenmod phones will be good.

FYI, Xiaomi, a Beijing based company, has launched its TV with root-able Android based OS(, but with limited availability like other products from the company). Other competitors are also trying hard to catch up.

You know, something like the form factor of the new Raspberry Pi Compute module might be a neat way to go about this. If they could agree on the interface, it'd allow an otherwise "dumb" display to get easy, hackable upgrades over time.

That's true, but what I'd really like is to be able to change the way the TV itself behaves. For instance, my Panasonic TV will automatically switch to the HDMI input if I turn on my Apple TV after turning on the TV. My Samsung TV won't - you always have to navigate the dumb "choose source" menu. That's the kind of thing I would want to be able to customise. A separate unit would be a good intermediate step (basically, something like AppleTV but with a tuner in it), but a truly hackable TV would be better.

The standard VESA mount + HDMI would probably be a better fit than having to cram everything into a SO-DIMM sized PCB. It should also work right now in most existing TVs.

True, but if they're going to insist on cramming things into the display itself it'd be an interesting way to leave them somewhat future-proofed. Personally, outside of mobile devices, I do like most others here seem to, ignore the display's capabilities and attach a computer/Roku/Apple TV/etc.