Surely fork companies could make room for that extra stuff higher up by extending the stanchions up to around the height of the top of the head tube; then you could even connect those two extensions with an extra crown or something and even maybe mount the stem to it.
I was comparing the shimano patent to the non cvt honda, and while executed differently their ideas are somewhat similar. While shimanos patent uses a fixed and a sliding casette contrary to the more trafitional system of the honda, it still looks like it uses a derailleur-like mechanism to guide the chain between the cassettes to achieve a perfect chainline...