As a huge fan of Snabb Switch, I'd love to hear more about what inspired you in OF .. !
Oh thanks for the kind words :-)
Relevant blog entry: http://lukego.github.io/blog/2012/10/28/firmware-vs-software...
I worked with Mitch on "bringup" of the OLPC 1.5 hardware and got to see him doing amazing things. The best was when he needed to initialize the memory controller to make RAM available and so he flashed a small Forth system that could run strictly within cache and then connected to that with a serial port and poked the memory controller registers until he had the RAM working. Made an impression on me :-).
OpenFirmware is one of the main inspirations for the design of Snabb Switch too. I was impressed that Mitch writes his own drivers faster than most people can integrate off-the-shelf ones. He sets a great example of getting more done by making a habit of self-sufficiency instead of accumulating ever more dependencies and keeping them up to date.