I don't know a lot about this topic but I had an introduction class where we also covered FPGAs. The prof offering the class though is really sufficient in this topic and has developed this tool: https://github.com/esa-tu-darmstadt/tapasco/blob/master/READ...
As you are saying it seems like just a science toy project but he was quite convinced that it already works pretty good and good enough for fourth-semesters to work with it.
The tool itself is a high level c++ tool-chain to develop for FPGAs.
You should definitely check it out :)
Then there's also Bluespec Verilog which has been open sourced not too long ago. It is way more abstract than Verilog or system Verilog and in comparison to them it's a pleasure to write in. But it's definitely not as high-level as C++.
Then there's also Bluespec Verilog which has been open sourced not too long ago. It is way more abstract than Verilog or system Verilog and in comparison to them it's a pleasure to write in. But it's definitely not as high-level as C++.