Why not triage things? In the long list of things. I would prefer to be spec complete first and then take up optimization. No one here is saying optimization shouldn't be done. The question is when? When product itself is half complete whats the point in optimizing an half complete product?

Whatever we do, we'll get hate and pushback from random people on the Internet, so there's nothing left to do but do what we think is best.

This is what bought us into this trouble in the first place. Secondly if a project is 14 years late. And all people see is sub projects and re writes how do you expect people to react?

Either way the days of the Perl 6 hope are over. We are now in a stage where we accept we won't see a Perl 6 ever. If we ever see, its just a good thing to have.

Say whatever you like, but by looking at the current progress I see at least 3 years of waiting time till we get something useful.