George, I must politely disagree with this post. This notion, that you suggest, has come up before on threads. Eg.: Why the grand advancements in computers, cell-phones, cameras , etc... in the recent decades. Yet for metal detectors, any advancements have slowed to a crawl in the last 20 to 30 yrs. there's machines. Heck, the Explorers and CZ's are 25-ish and more years old now ! Everything new that hits the market is mostly whistles and bells.
Contrast to the gigantic leaps of md'ing evolution that took place from 1965 to 1995, for instance.
Your rationale of "lack of funding" is not correct. The real reason is: You can't break the laws of physics. We've approached the point of "diminishing returns". And NO AMOUNT of money that you throw at the problem will change that.
All the wonderful computer and phone advancements are ALL a function of "faster and smaller". But for md'ing, there's ONLY so much information you can pump into the ground, and only so much information you can retrieve back out of the ground . "Faster and Smaller" doesn't change that.