[nevcairiel]

You do realize that a newer codec would end up even more complex, and thus even slower, and also slowing down hardware adoption even more?
All your points can be applied for any new codec.

- Mobile hardware, especially on the low-end, is inherently slow. The dav1d AV1 decoder can decode 1080p on mid-range and high-end mobile devices. But for mainstream roll out, thats not going to be used anyway, because it uses too much battery.
- Encoder development takes years. You must not have been around when any other codec was new. On top of that, any new codec is also always going to be slower then previous codecs. You pay for quality or compression with speed.
- Hardware development also takes years. Noone knolwedgeable ever realistically expected AV1 to show up in hardware before the end of 2020 or so. The turn-around times for hardware are really long. Hardware you see launch/announced today was long through the design process before AV1 was finished.

Any other new codec would be in the exact same situation a year or so after the spec was officially finalized. In fact this is already looking pretty good on adoption, most major browsers now include AV1 decoders, and YouTube is rolling out content.

Basically, do some more research on how codec lifetime has been in the past for any other codec.