Welcome to the Forum, Justin!
The vertical slot chromatic concept is a very old idea, dating back to the 19th century. Here's a patent drawing from 1899:
1899 Patent Vertical Slot Slider Design.jpg
In the mid 20th century the design was used by a couple of lesser-known manufacturers for chromatic harmonicas. Here are a couple of photos:
Vertical Slot Chromatic Front View.jpg
Vert Slot Slider Plastic Chromatic.jpg
The inventor/designer Finn Magnus used it in a highly innovative chromatic harmonica with plastic reeds. Here's his patent drawing:
Magnus Platic Chromatic Patent.jpg
Hohner experimented with it in the 1920s, but never released a commercial model.
I've also made quite a few home prototypes using the vertical slot comb/slider design for various design ideas.
So as you can see, the Trochilus is nothing new! But its success is certainly bringing back attention to this excellent slim comb configuration for chromatic harmonicas.
One problem you may not have considered: where do you get the reedplates to fit your 12-hole vertical slot comb design? It requires reeds with even spacing. Currently most commercial 12-hole reedplates have the blow/draw reeds clustered in pairs (not ideal, because the internal valves will hit the comb dividers). The Easttop Forerunner has 12 hole reedplates with evenly spaced reeds... but they are not great quality (quite airy), the reed directions are not optimal, and the tuning is not configured for the vertical slot comb design - so lots of retuning would be involved.
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