Because even if you get compilers to optimize for your current VLIW, that makes it harder to make improvements down the line. Current way, while arguably prett

Because even if you get compilers to optimize for your current VLIW, that makes it harder to make improvements down the line. Current way, while arguably pretty wasteful on all the micro-optimizing CPU does on incoming bytecode, allows designers to nearly freely expand hardware to meet the needs without having compilers to produce different code.