I would be also more than keen to have new Atari hardware, but the fact is that hardware design nowadays is quite a difficult and long task.
At that point, why not using (as a bootstrap) existing hardware in the market, like PPC motherboards, or even better, Apple machines, which are at some points well designed.
Also, I would say, that at some point, not only the hardware would need a reshape, but the OS and of course the software running on it. So why not beginning this software tasks, and then/or during the same time, designing hardware ...