Yep. Sending 40gbps raw data over a cable with real time processing is a really hard problem to solve. Now that processing and streaming System on a Chip solutions are super cheap and powerful I'd rather see them all take a step back to sending the data via TCP/IP in packets and then open it locally on the displays and audio renderers.
Consumer video is such a screwed up thing. They take a compressed stream (on disc or streamed) that is at most 100 mbit/sec, decompress it into gigabits/sec and then try to switch and send it around using HDMI. What is ironic is that the TV has full decoding capability of said streams so there is no reason for the source to decompress these bits. There is no reason at all for any upstream device to decode it.
They do it this way because hardware people comfortable with bits this way but not with software and protocols for sending compressed bits around.
If they had stayed in compressed domain as you say, then we could easily switch and route it using traditional networking gear.
In the old days broadcast TV was uncompressed so they routed it that way. But they have been sleep for years now not realizing the game has changed and keep pushing this broken idea of a high-speed serial streams over HDMI cables. And of course insanity keeps getting worse as the resolutions jump higher and higher, constantly breaking HDMI protocol and such with it.