[throwaway17_17]

You are correct about the 25%. That was a mistake (for anyone else looking, the 45% was a decrease in the executed instruction amount from stack to register.

Correction aside, I, at some level, agree with you. The question of appropriateness/benefits of a SM model is different than considerations of the effectiveness of the code. In terms of the Forth SM model and its explicitly imperative model, I am familiar with the various complaints/arguments/critiques for varying reasons. I certainly acknowledge there is at least some burden placed due to the stack mechanics. I happen to be particularly attracted to the approach and enjoy programming that way, but that is just a preference of mine. However, I also tend to look at Forth as imperative language with which to program in what Backus describes as ‘function level programming.’ I find the benefits as listed by Jon Purdy, author of the Kitten language, in his talk about concatenative code to be compelling enough that exploration and refinement of this idea space to be valuable.

All that said, I am perfectly willing to consider that, as presented in Forth and presumably in the proposed language, SM mechanics and models are a hurdle for users of the language.