[eru]

> But some kind of 1:1 correspondence was lost ages ago.

The ratio has been shifting all this time. There wasn't a one time shift that happened once.

> Optimizing for size, to squeeze out every last byte possible: who still does this in 2024?

You can still find that in the demoscene. A few years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger made a big splash. (Well, it's actually been 20 years. How time flies. But they still make small demos and games today.)