Well, it took about 4 months but I finally got myself custom switches for the PiDP... It turns out that making custom switches is not all that hard - all I did was make a Sketchup model (adapt an existing model, really) and the switch manufacturer did the rest reasonably painlessly.

Here is the end result: the 2016 PiDP-8...

As usual, I took the pictures in bad lighting so the color looks a bit off from what they really are. So now I know custom switches are not hard to arrange. If anyone is thinking of doing the same, I'm happy to share the details.

Another improvement is in the software. The Raspberry Pi is a nice board but the standard Linux distribution is bloated - taking up to 40 seconds to boot. Which is annoying if you want to use it as a microcontroller. I found pipaOS - which boots into wifi in less than 10 seconds, so that's what the new firmware for the PiDP is build upon. Details are here.