Seems to me that a halfway step might be more feasible yet still providing most of the benefit...
At a recent show, I asked Mitch why Van's didn't dimple pieces when they were punched, with the holes being punched to final size and not needing de-burring. His reply was, basically, inventory management. If a given piece of sheet metal is used identically, left/right or top/bottom, only one part number is required if the piece is not dimpled. As soon as it is dimpled, then there are two part numbers required, more storage space required, chance of shipping error, etc.
Seems to me that there are several solutions:
* For pieces that have no pre-dimple ambiguity, such as vertical fin skins, bulkheads and other parts, dimple them at the factory. The only potential downside is that if the builder wants to spray primer on just the inside of the piece, it's hard to completely keep the primer from bleeding through the dimpled holes, even with tape over them. Dimpling these parts is so easy and (I would think) so inexpensive as to be worth doing now. It can also address the minor issue of rivet holes expanding when dimpled. (I don't know what issues there may be in dimpling plastic-coated aluminum, but I've got to think that's not a hard problem to solve, at least, not if somebody else is doing it.)
* For flat sheet pieces that are used in two ways, there may be two solutions: one is to have an after-market shop with the appropriate NC machinery receive parts from Van's and then custom dimple the pieces for the individual builder; and another is to let the builder order dimpled skins from a shop that has the NC code from Van's -- or maybe make the codes available so that local shops can do it. After all, there's not much intellectual property to be protected in a flat sheet of aluminum with holes in it. However, Van's has said that maintaining the quality of the aluminum is a constant struggle. And if a piece has to be bent and Van's is using an NC controlled sheet metal brake, probably makes sense to have the builder dimple the piece as is done now.
Then we get to anodize, alodyne, priming, etc. When I was building the RV-10 tailcone and had all the parts ready to rivet, I took all the pieces down to a shop and had them spray prime it all. (I had metal tags on parts that looked alike but had been fit into specific places). Took them about a morning to do it all. (It was sad to see the man spraying in full protective gear while his assistant, standing next to him and handling the parts, had none.) The advantage of this is that many builders can do this now if an appropriate shop is within driving distance.
Or there might be a business opportunity for somebody to take a Van's slow build kit, do the dimpling and priming, and then send it on to the ultimate customer. A caveat, of course -- there's folks in the amateur built community at both ends of the quality/craftsmanship/integrity scale.
I'm probably blowing smoke on some of this -- my background is in software, not hardware -- but there may be merit.