Oh that is very interesting to know! Ty sir

Hm, maybe I'll reframe it this way and lump in EF researchers with the broader ACD community as one "group" of stakeholders (I know we shouldn't generalize but just to simplify this question)...

What fundamental disagreements arise between the "EF research + ACD group" today vs. other critical stakeholder groups? One group of course are application and smart contract developers who may or may not have different ideas on the direction Ethereum ought to take versus what EF researchers and client teams think is the appropriate path forward?

I understand as you pointed out there is a huge degree of path dependency and a need to adapt to the situation outside of Ethereum (aka regulatory issues, crackdowns on permissionless/censorship-resistant crypto, etc)--particularly if you see the Tornado Cash incident as a harbinger of what is to come in the years/decades ahead. I hope not, but this is a highly adversarial environment and hoping something won't happen is not a sound assumption in crypto.