I think it's cheating a bit to compare JIT vs runtime script evaluation. I'd be more interested to see LuaJIT performance measured against something more comparable, like JS running on V8.
I thought it was dead/dying though? No future plans to add new features, especially sense the creator said he was done with it...
Probably why it's so popular in games as a scripting engine (going back to 2003).
> in games as a scripting engine (going back to 2003)
you are think of lua, luajit is a different beast.