> The focus in the statement above no longer feels like it is on the actual productive output of the project itself, and in previous years it wasn't like that, nor needed to be like that.
I don’t believe you. Python was never like this in the past, and has a long history of rejecting objectively good performance enhancements because the BDFL and friends wanted the implementation to remain a simple teaching example for students.
I have been a member of the Python community since 2002 and followed the lists for just as long, not least because of the quality of technical discussion up until the start of the 3.x saga.
I don't think anyone would deny Python has changed since then, I think most notably in the years following the release of Django, Python becoming a go-to web language, and the size of the community exploding.
I don’t believe you. Python was never like this in the past, and has a long history of rejecting objectively good performance enhancements because the BDFL and friends wanted the implementation to remain a simple teaching example for students.