sounds like Firefox OS would've been right up your alley(?)

Yeah well, not in the way it progressed after the carriers started to take control over it (I was actively involved in a Firefox device-project back then).

What I sketched out here with a "Browser on everything" OS would be a concept for a aftermarket OS, where the device-vendor is not required to have his OS support the unlocked HW (because he can't be forced to do that), but he will have to provide components and documentation up to a certain layer to make use of the hardware. This could then be the layer for a generic "Browser on everything" OS to work on.