Ok- so WILD speculation? Not so much as a prediction but something I'd love to see happen:
I'd love to see Cliff's take on a multichannel DSP based thunderbolt preamp/interface, modelling the analogue stages of classic preamps, EQs, compressors tape, verb, all with zero latency monitoring.
Cliff has already modelled tape, passive EQs, studio reverbs, preamps etc- so a lot of the code is already there- it would probably be a big challenge in terms of the hardware and a mammoth challenge in terms of the communication to the DAW in the way I imagine it; The hardware would have a two way connection with the DAW so you could tweak these settings on the hardware using a plugin, before AND after recording. I'd imagine you could 'undo' the EQ you tracked with, because the 'Studio FX' records the source to the DAW dry, but always plays back each channel through its own hardware DSP stream, controlled by the plugin freeing up your computers CPU for editing and ha felling the audio files. This could be a nightmare to integrate into ALL the available DAWs, unless of course fractal build their own DAW too...
I guess it would be a more modern protools HD model- but actually good...