Sure, that's fair. And I'm not saying RISC-V made the wrong choice. Just that lack of "impure" instructions like LDMIA does reduce code density, and can't be

Sure, that's fair. And I'm not saying RISC-V made the wrong choice. Just that lack of "impure" instructions like LDMIA does reduce code density, and can't be fixed through fusion, even if you can get ahead of Thumb2 with improvements elsewhere. (Thumb2 is the most apt comparison here I think, since the instructions I mentioned are Thumb2 instructions.)