Having different protocols that are useful for different purposes and adding diversity to a monoculture could be helpful, but this one doesn't seem to be that good.

It has mandatory TLS (even though I think optional TLS is better), and a mandatory HANDSHAKE command (even though TLS already has the domain name before you can connect), some arbitrary limits, and does not actually add anything that is helpful nor remove many things that should be removed.

It does use a different DNS, although I think this should be done at a different level, rather than specific to the application protocol, and it should not use JSON.

It also uses Lua instead of JavaScript (I looked at the documentation of the provided functions and of its working, and I think it isn't really much of an improvement), and adds a <postprocess> command (which can make it hard to read), etc, but not really much of an improvement.

My opinion is, I think it is not really worth much and is not very good. (There are other things some people (including myself) have done with new protocols, some of which are actually good, but some of them (such as this one) isn't really so good to me.)

Genuine question: Why do you feel optional TLS is better?