For a number of years, the Electronic Systems Design Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton has been working on a behavioral synthesis tool - MOODS (Multiple Objective Optimization in control and Data path Synthesis). Unlike many other high-level synthesis tools, MOODS optimizes designs by a series of small, localized transforms to the data and control paths. This approach has some significant advantages over other techniques, most notably that a number of different objectives can be specified, without knowing the relationship between those objectives. Initially, optimization was performed in terms of area and critical path delay, but this has been extended (through a succession of PhD projects) to include power, testability and reconfigurability. In this talk, the techniques used and results achieved will be discussed, together with future research directions.