I traced the CPU usage on my wife's laptop many years ago. That wasn't a fast machine, but it wasn't a 386 either. The ad blockers were her performance problems, alone.
If the browser maintainers have seen a couple of machines with similar problems and maintainers of regexp-using add blockers simply insisted that their code was fast, "a 386 could handle" etc, I can easily see how the browser maintainers might lose patience. Don't need to assume ill will.
A 386 could handle a regexp fine. Compare that to audio or video decoding for ads. Not the same ballpark by orders of magnitude.
It's dead because Google makes money from ads. I shifted to Firefox ages ago.