Have you considered defense industry work? If you can get into an R&D group, the technology will likely be cutting edge and all the burdensome DOD program requirements are reduced or eliminated. Also, there are lots of folks in their 40s/50s/60s still working as individual contributors here (Northrop Grumman).
Have applied for positions at Lockheed, Raytheon, LLNL. Except for the latter, I've never seen research positions open up.