To me, the antiquity of the LDraw spec can actually be a benefit. It makes it more accessible for new users with limited programming experience, like me. It's simple enough to be comprehensible, and the files human-readable, but extensible enough that you can get (perhaps surprisingly) sophisticated results.
At the same time, this means that a core operational principle of LDraw is actually the opposite of what you envision—there is a focus (perhaps excessively so, given modern software capabilities) on minimizing mesh complexity, and relying instead on external processes within the LDraw applications to provide runtime enhancement.
In my view this is a sensible goal, but at the same time a limitation, as it depends on the extended community to provide tools for a "fit and finish" to an LDraw creation. Many of these tools do exist, like primitive substitution, but some gaps remain—both figuratively and literally. (My go-to example is the mis-match between flat quad and triangle geometries on the patterned section of a minifig head, and the adjacent round primitives of the base head part.)
So, I do think there is room for some kind of enhancement to the core spec to allow for a more refined result "out of the box"—i.e., a properly crafted LDraw model will give a satisfactory result, at resolutions common to modern tools, in any complaint software without the need for excessive external processing. At the moment, this is already largely the case, but as I say, there are a few gaps.
This is the kind of thing that I imagine as part of a future "LDraw 2.0" protocol—something that exists alongside and on top of the current core spec, which it should never deprecate or replace, but only enhance. Perhaps there could be new methods to identify flat-plane geometries as representing curved surfaces (like the patterned minifig face), and thus needing to be smoothed. Or perhaps it would be better to encase the whole of of a minifig head in some kind of geometric shell—something that isn't rendered itself, but onto which the component geometries are projected uniformly.
Anyway, the best way forward might be a middle ground between the status quo and a full exploitation of all modern possibilities, but that sounds very much in the LDraw spirit to me!
At the same time, this means that a core operational principle of LDraw is actually the opposite of what you envision—there is a focus (perhaps excessively so, given modern software capabilities) on minimizing mesh complexity, and relying instead on external processes within the LDraw applications to provide runtime enhancement.
In my view this is a sensible goal, but at the same time a limitation, as it depends on the extended community to provide tools for a "fit and finish" to an LDraw creation. Many of these tools do exist, like primitive substitution, but some gaps remain—both figuratively and literally. (My go-to example is the mis-match between flat quad and triangle geometries on the patterned section of a minifig head, and the adjacent round primitives of the base head part.)
So, I do think there is room for some kind of enhancement to the core spec to allow for a more refined result "out of the box"—i.e., a properly crafted LDraw model will give a satisfactory result, at resolutions common to modern tools, in any complaint software without the need for excessive external processing. At the moment, this is already largely the case, but as I say, there are a few gaps.
This is the kind of thing that I imagine as part of a future "LDraw 2.0" protocol—something that exists alongside and on top of the current core spec, which it should never deprecate or replace, but only enhance. Perhaps there could be new methods to identify flat-plane geometries as representing curved surfaces (like the patterned minifig face), and thus needing to be smoothed. Or perhaps it would be better to encase the whole of of a minifig head in some kind of geometric shell—something that isn't rendered itself, but onto which the component geometries are projected uniformly.
Anyway, the best way forward might be a middle ground between the status quo and a full exploitation of all modern possibilities, but that sounds very much in the LDraw spirit to me!