I do get the impression that position is not the overwhelming consensus among CPython core devs (nor does it really make sense, given the huge dependency of many packages to the C API), whether or not it is what PSF may have publicly communicated. There are a few glimmers that interpreter improvements are on the horizon, with some proposals like subinterpreters and GIL mitigation getting a lot of attention, all which (to my knowledge) are necessary and prerequisite to serious, bold performance improvements.
I agree performance is important, and I think we have reason to be optimistic, but with the understanding that that level of improvement, even if currently underway, will just take a lot of effort and time. Meanwhile, as someone fairly new to Python and working on several performance critical pieces, I've been pretty impressed with what you can do with the current compute packages (after taking months to work my way through most of them).
As far as I'm concerned, CPython as an interpreter technology has not advanced in the past decade - and Python has grown thanks to the data science community efforts and excellent library ecosystem you mention, not due to PSF. PSF can only miss so many opportunities before something comprehensively better starts to eclipse it.