Sorry I've been slow to update this thread. A lot of the discussion has moved to Discord for better or for worse. But I'll try to put major updates here when I can.
@DarthOuroboros Regarding a Lua machine, I had considered this option previously when I was planning out the script extender, but discarded it as the scripting community is already very well established, and asking people to adopt a new scripting paradigm might be a hard sell.
However, that's not to say there'll never be a Lua machine implemented as you describe. There's room in the patching project for all sorts of ideas and features (provided someone is willing to create them). It just isn't currently on my or anyone elses docket to look into that.