[__d]

I'm sure skilled volunteers would be very welcome.

There are numerous active, moderately serious efforts to both optimize and/or JIT Python bytecode. I think AOT compilation is mostly out-of-scope for 100% compatibility, but again, there's lots of different efforts to compile either subset languages or subsets of programs.

"Kicking and screaming" suggests some reluctance to embrace this, but I think that's probably unfair: it's just hard.

[pjmlp]

It isn't as if PyPy doesn't exist. Embracing it during the 16 years of its existence is another matter.