Yup. Go look into tigervnc if you want to see the source. But also you can just search for "tigervnc h.264" and you'll see extensive discussions between the devs on h.264 and integrating it into tiger. This is something that people spent a LOT of brainpower on.

I'm not sure; sometimes being an experienced dev gravitates you towards the lazy solutions that are "good enough". Senior engineers are often expected to work at a rate that precludes solving interesting problems, and so the dumber solution will often win; at least that's been my experience, and what I tell myself to go to sleep at night when I get told for the millionth time that the company can't justify formal verification.