> i read somewhere that they had to resort to buying them on ebay in the specific binning/stepping cause they were no longer made by the mfg

This wouldn't surprise me. A friend was working on a defense project, an avionics system. In their test/development lab they had the hardware itself, same as what's in the aircraft (an F-??, 16 probably). The display died. They couldn't do anything with it. They ended up having to contract with someone to set up the manufacturing process and conduct a one-time production run. The damn displays pushed 6-figures in cost each.

Unfortunately, modernizing these systems isn't as easy as just hooking up a modern LCD/LED display, minimally they'll have to insert some new circuit to sit between the display controller and the incompatible display to do translation. That means one more part that has to be developed with a maintenance plan setup, testing and certification done. It's kind of sad that spending close to $100k for a 6" display is cheaper than moving to a new display that would likely cost much less in the long run.