1.x Update Idea: The Fight or Flight Update

As this is quite a long read, here's a brief overview of all the paragraphs in order:

• Combat Problems
• Performance Problems
• This Idea
• The "Fight" Part
• The "Flight" Part

Minecraft's Combat System is known for being basic enough for casual players, but it's lacking the depth that some, especially people in the PvP-community, would like it to have. That, if I understand correctly, is about why Jeb has been giving us the Combat Test Snapshots, which are a great step in the right direction...
Like the 1.17 Caves and Cliffs Update!

With more and more items, mechanics, biomes and customization options added each new update causes greater performance requirements on all platforms and some large Java Edition servers have concerns about updating because they're afraid performance issues could arise. There have been some promising ideas on how to take care of this, but they would have to come into Vanilla, which is never easy.

The "Fight or Flight" Update gets it's name from the fact that after the update, those two things specifically would be a lot more enjoyable. It would combine the "Combat Update" and the "Performance Fixes" into one, making smooth gameplay the main theme.

Combat would be improved using Jeb's Testing Snapshots together with more community feedback and more programmer power!

Soaring through the sky would be made easier with all the performance fixes and improvements achievable, making all kinds of things like faster chunk rendering and by extension faster air travel possible!