Yeah, the compiler was started in 2019 when zig wasn't nearly as viable of an option. On top of that, you don't necessarily know what you want until you build something.

I'm part of the core team, and I'm honestly still a bit surprised we're switching to zig. I think it makes sense, it just kinda finally aligned and was decided now. I guess enough technical debt piled up and the core of the language was clearly discovered. So we really know what we want now.