It looks like "run-only" is a term-of-the-art in AppleScript, since that label appears on the UI that generates such binaries.
osacompile[0] does actually produce some form of bytecode when you pass the "x" execute only flag.
Here's a script that opens Safari[1] and the compiled output[2].
[0] https://ss64.com/osx/osacompile.html