We are all making compromises because we are trying to balance making more features available with fixing the shit we already threw together.  Making clients more efficient tends to be lower priority because it makes devs look like they aren't doing much.

As for fixing nostr so we can download only root posts, and to differentiate the meaning of 'e' tags, is hard because of backwards compatibility. But it happens anyways (nostr breaks rapidly, that BREAKING file is rarely updated, but we still somehow survive it).

I think given all the concerns, the compromises we have to make, getting us to be in sync with each other. ... we are doing pretty well. But it does feel annoyingly slow nonetheless.

It's not low interest in doing it.  But yes, those things. And more.