It already has gone down the path. One of the more notable advancements in the past decade or so is the increase in language tooling that isn't strictly related to compilation: improved static analysis tools, language servers, formatters, etc. These require high-quality ASTs to get correct, and for C/C++ especially, you need to have the AST backed by a codegen somewhere to know you got it correct. Yet GCC has resisted adding support for this, because of fears that it would make it easier to subvert the GPL, à la Dragonegg.