[0815test]

Nope, you don't need anything like the complexity of x86 decode in order to reach good instruction density. RISC-V matches x86 with a simple "compressed" extension involving 16-bit forms for some of the most common instructions (but still quite straightforward to decode in hardware).

[voidlogic]

I agree. Its almost always more performant to intentionally build a system that to have characteristics that another system incrementally evolved to have. This is why rewritten software (if actually delivered) often performs better than the original, its usually this and not new framework X or new language Y that resulted in the win.