Hmm. I feel like we have all the right ingredients. We just need the right team. I've been mucking with a spec for 8+ years and every time you open your mouth, I raise an amen. This indicates to me that, given the convergence of ideas, there is a correct answer.
The problem is that everything needs to be fixed at once. There are lots of pre-existing projects that are mostly correct for some aspect, but this is a case where mostly correct doesn't get you there, largely because the pre-existing solutions over solve some aspect making them, as you mentioned, software rather than a spec.
