There are lots of features that someone would say “should have been in there since 2018”. We hear this about a feature every day. Unfortunately, it is never the same feature, otherwise it would be simple.
One reason we haven’t done it the way you describe is that we have a design for this already, and we like it much better. We want to do it properly, rather than shoehorn in a temporary hack which we are then stuck with.
The good news is that the focus feature is really nearing the top of the list. It is something that comes up in our planning, and it should arrive sooner rather than later.