Having a technique that optimizes solely for whole pixels seems relatively reasonable, given current hardware PPIs. Systems that want to handle grayscale could use a different technique for that.
That said, there are interesting effects other than grayscale antialiasing, and I wonder how well slug could handle things like outlines (useful for subtitles over video, to make them readable on any background).
I don't follow, current hardware PPIs are generally low, while whole pixels work for high?