> Operating systems probably would be one thing that could be a massive project to undertake but would be worth it

I don't think so. Even if you take small embedded project, there's a lot of unreliability that could creep in. You're not really sure what you got from a sensor is good or noise. Which is why you got all those error checking and ack in the protocols. You can make assumptions and try to verify your own code, but that's only if it brings enough benefits (mostly give you a clear sense of how likely something could go wrong). And that holds only for one version of the software.

You can do reliability study on hardware because it stays mostly in one configuration. But all bets are off if you're constantly modifying stuff inside.

The example you gave is maybe one of the ones where this is least applicable. For systems with MMU's one would tend to use microkernels (like sel4) and then write driver servers for different components and the driver servers should be where hardware errors are handled. sel4 is only for systems with MMU and it's pointless outside of it.