ASIC and FPGA feasibility as GPU I've done a minor amount of research into the topic of bitcoin mining using ASICs and FPGAs, and I've started wondering:

Could these be used as GPUs (possibly specialized to a subset of what modern GPUs are capable of)?  If they're so much faster than GPUs, what is preventing them from being adopted as a GPU replacement?  Is it just that they are specialized hardware and simply can't perform all the tasks a modern GPU can?

And as a quick side-question: Do password crackers use these as well?  If not, why?
No. ASICs are Application Specific, so they can't do anything else. Not password cracking either.

You can use them as an electric heater.