> I also feel like in the age of many-cores we could do away with problems like GC pauses completely.

Unfortunately its not a resources problem, or else there wouldn't be an issue with GC pauses on fast hardware.

There is a solution for that though, and Cliff Click of Azul Systems is willing to sell you the only pause-less JVM GC there is for the low low price of 7500$ per server (see http://www.azulsystems.com/products/zing/whatisit).