IMO [USER] you're absolutely correct, rewriting imports is compile-time behavior that is *not* a runtime change—in fact, for this resolution algorithm, you are having to make the compile-time changes by hand, in your source code, rather than letting the TS compiler do it for you.
I have personally said enough on this to digress now also, as maintainers have made it clear they feel like it's a waste of their time—but it seems clear that developers would prefer to not rewrite thousands of imports by hand.