You're right. It wasn't a design choice or technical limitation, but a troubling third thing: certain contributors consistently spreading misinformation about ESM being inherently async (when it's only conditionally async), and creating a hostile environment that “drove contributors away” from ESM work - as the implementer themselves described.

Today, no one will defend ERR_REQUIRE_ESM as good design, but it persisted for 5 years despite working solutions since 2019. The systematic misinformation in docs and discussions combined with the chilling of conversations suggests coordinated resistance (“offline conversations”). I suspect the real reason for why “things do and don’t happen” is competition from Bun/Deno.