There was a point made recently by Musk that the whole clean room idea is outdated if you can just ensure the path the silicon takes from wafer to lidding is clean. Seems solvable to me, but leaves me wondering why it hasn’t been done before. I assume there is no human handling of raw/etched silicon now anyway, so why does the whole room need to be clean?

So what? Maybe a hand full of full bunnies per shift, and another dozen or two half-bunnies. There aren't more. This can be seen/validated by some older yt-videos, where something went wrong in the fab, for instance a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP ejecting a wafer in wrong ways into a machine, then being ejected by that onto the floor, and shattering. Causing all systems to stop, and all the warning lights beginning to blink in an expanding cascade. At about 4:30AM. Maybe 20 seconds later two half bunnies with face masks appear, another 10 seconds later a full bunnie. Some gesticulating ensues, full bunnie opens his suit, gets his flip phone, half bunnies downing their masks. All looking very concerned and exasperated. Having a really bad day. No more bunnies appear over several minutes. Video ends.