Transpiling shaders is what most game engines have done for a decade now. Everybody thinks it's stupid in that field as well, but there is no viable alternative.

MS/NV are trying to start a program to pre-compile shaders for common hardware configurations and games/engines, and simply download them to clients.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/introducing-advanced-...

I think it was the most game engines once they adopted Direct 3D 8; so over two decades now.