LLVM is not a VM by any stretch of the imagination. It is an intermediate language for compilers whose primary utility is to provide a common target for code generation and optimization. LLVM's name is a misnomer.
It was a stupid email - you can make LLVM into an architecture-agnostic bytecode by disallowing those codes.
Don't believe me?... https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/reference/pnacl-b...
No, I'm not. In fact, I have no idea what email you're referencing.
LLVM as an intermediate language (I guess you could call it bytecode if you really wanted to) for compilers of arbitrary languages (expressly not a virtual machine!) is the only point I intended to make.
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvmdev/2011-October/0437...
It was not a stupid email. The arguments there are still pretty much correct today.