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Depends on how fast your BIOS/UEFI is at loading sectors off the disk; some are really slow and it can be faster to load and boot a small kernel and then load all the modules.

Static kernels like that used to be a lot more common when the kernel was simpler. I semi-fondly remember trying to optimize my 2.x era kernels on my Slackware box to eliminate everything I didn't absolutely need.

> My understanding is if you compile the essential drivers you need for boot in the kernel (not as modules), then you don't need the initramfs step.

Correct. When I ran Funtoo I did that so I can tell you it works.

> Should result in faster boot.

Possibly, but you should test. I expect it to work so long as you only bake in drivers needed for boot; if you include more then it could theoretically slow things down vs lazy-loading later.