I'm not going to attempt to steel man my case here, because it wouldn't matter if I did. It's a fundamental issue that cannot resolved without nuking everything.

But it seems obvious to me that using a binary encoding format (think protocol buffers, though I'm not pushing a particular format here) would be superior in every way, and I suspect that their rationale for using a stringified format was more about prioritizing a vision where reaching as many people as possible, under the assumption that the browser was the dominant model for access, trumped common sense design for the protocol. I just don't trust their judgement.