WebGL is making progress via extensions with Uniform Buffers, instanced geometry, etc., but as most people end up using e.g. Three.js, it seems like exposing a sane, more fine-grained API would help everyone.
[0] Knowing full-well that WebVulkan naturally won't magically solve any performance issues, and seems to be a very different beast https://twitter.com/Tojiro/status/628660898756825089