I think half the fun for people that do things like this is figuring out how to out innovate a multi-billion dollar company so that they can make something 1/4th as good but at 1/10000th the price. I bet there are some -really- innovative people out there that would figure alternatives to a lot of the expensive parts of the process and figure out how to be able to produce 2000's level chips at home. I'm not one of them though :)

The problem is that they aren't (yet) 1/4th as good for 1/10000th of the price. Patterning is just one part of the process - and not nearly the most difficult one.