First, I'm hesitant in making this post, as I do not intend to belittle anything getting done. Sounds like this team is working very hard on solutions, and that is ultimately awesome. And, serious thanks for the details. Sounds very fun. (And, over my head.)

I am curious on why you have "potentially" in parens. Is this just not panning out in measurements? Are these not techniques that older products could have already subsumed into their repertoire?

A lot of this reads like RISC versus CISC debates. There are virtually no techniques that one side can claim monopoly on. So it is not surprising to see that picking the acceptable tradeoffs and combining solutions appropriately is often very effective.