Quoting his answer [1] in the vim_dev mailing list:
It's going to be an awful lot of work, with the result that not all
systems will be supported, new bugs introduced and what's the gain
for the end user exactly?
Total refactoring is not a solution. It's much better to improve what
we have. Perhaps with some small refactorings specifically aimed at
making Vim work better for users.
[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/vim_dev/x0BF9Y0Uby8/94tmiaBv...