What I would always dream about was actual tis-100 like hardware, each module a small cheap microcontroller with 4 uarts(does that exist?) and a self interlocking module design so it is not constrained by a base chassis. And because I am insane, in-band programming, that is, each module needs to and can only be programmed by it's neighbors. It would be such a nightmare to actually make anything.
Heh, That would make for an interesting sequel. You thought tis-100 was obtuse and hard, now you have to design autonomous self duplicating code, it's the tis-400 virus processor.
I am still so sad about this, though it's probably better for the mental health of all of us who rarely ever hit the top 10.
But on the other hand, when I'm playing TIS-100 and similar games and get presented with a score and a leaderboard when finishing a level, I also don't want to see 100s of top LLMs, and no humans, but would much more prefer to see only humans to compare against, as I don't regularly "compete" against LLMs, and wouldn't see much point in that.
But yeah, online leaderboards are definitely dead now, unless we figure out some foolproof human attribution mechanism, which feels kind of further away than ever.
Streaming and / or physical tournaments are where it's at.
I don't want to spoil myself looking at solutions nor get help with LLMs, so every couple of years I try to revisit it, but it's difficult to dive straight back into a hard puzzle.