> every method call is a string dict lookup

Doesn't the Python VM have inline caches? [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_caching

I think that's a new thing from like python 3.12+ or something after I stopped using Python as much.

It didn't used to.

EDIT: python 3.11+: https://peps.python.org/pep-0659/