For some time now, configurable computing has been hailed as the future for application-specific architectures. The purported advantages are well-known: the increasing NRE cost of chip fab is avoided, the same platform can be used for a variety of applications, and implementations can be fixed or upgraded in the field. But in spite of many attempts to move configurable computing platforms into the mainstream, they have yet to achieve their full promise. This talk will explore the barriers that have kept configurable computing on the sidelines thus far, and suggest steps that we might take to take advantage of its full potential.