I wouldn't be surprised if the noise setting is a bit of both. A lower (but non-zero) amount of noise might actually improve the image quality, as per the dithering remarks. And a higher amount of noise might be used to artificially make the sensor in lower end models appear crappier than it is. ![Wink ;)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Noticing how high Mike could turn up the noise from the E4's default, maybe they were thinking of making an E1 ~ E3 at some point.
Yes, it was one of the projects. I found it when I was trying to do reverse-engineering myself. But seeing how lawyers are VERY active with cease and desist notices, I lost all interest. Completing and maintaining the project would be a lot of work, no reason to do it and know for sure that it will be shut down as soon as it gets any traction.
The limited (public*) efforts to RE FPGAs is as you said, largely due to political/legal instead of technical issues; due to how the devices are constructed their bitstreams have a very regular format so it's rather trivial to figure out. Now if only someone does it anonymously and releases like Wikileaks...
![Wink ;)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
*because no doubt the Chinese have done it out a long time ago, and have just not shared their results, at least on the English side of the web, maybe for these legal reasons.