Hello Ludwig.
Imagine you are like to build a "many-lane" bridge over a river..
1. You could start with all lanes at the same time. This will cost you many effort, you need support constructions for every lane and the risk is quite high to fail at all.
2. You could start with a small bridge for pedestrians. The support construction is not so difficult and you're able to open this lane soon.
Later, you'll take the support constructions and setting up the first street lane. After opening the pedestrian bridge you're now proud to open the first real lane, your picture hits the news again.
Go ahead with the second lane, and so on. If you'd fail on the way, the bridge is already there and (partly) functional.
IMHO the second approach is the better one.
The 555 is quite known. Our effort is just "to port" the design to the LibreSilicon Technology.
Of course you are free to use the technology to design and build your own chips. I like to see your secure smart cards soon! :-)
We need a proof, that we are able to deal with the technology. And this impressive try-out for all the haptic white-collar professionals has to be as simple as possible.
Regards, Hagen.