Agreed, and ironically the most widely used Java platform (Android), despite its VM optimizations, is the one which would benefit the most from running only native code.
I mean, those 1GB RAM 7 years old slow as molasses phones getting dust into drawers or being littered into landfills would scream if they didn't have to run everything behind a VM.
Make no mistake — Android isn't memory hungry because of Java alone. Android 4 used to comfortably fit in 1Gb of RAM, but Android 10 no longer can run on such devices. Both old and new versions use JVM, but newer Android has a lot of "helpful" system services, such as "Usage Statistics" service [1] and "Autofill Servide" [2].
Google's spyware is becoming more invasive and thus more memory-hungry.
I mean, those 1GB RAM 7 years old slow as molasses phones getting dust into drawers or being littered into landfills would scream if they didn't have to run everything behind a VM.