Heatmap scalability

The heatmap plugin is not very scalable at the moment. For millions few data points, the map is "laggy" when moving the maps around (at a reasonable zoom level, when most of the data points are hidden).

From what I've investigated, it comes from the fact the, when the _redraw function is called, the code iterates over all data points to check if it is or not in the bounds of the map being shown.
It seems very inefficient since there exists data structure such as R-Tree that can efficiently retrieve the data points inside a box.

Now it seems that the Leaftlet.heat plugin is not maintained anymore (as noted in #1282 ). As far as I can tell, there is only the .min.js file on this repository, what are the plans for this plugin?
Host it completely on this organization so it can be modified and maintained?

For the problem of the performances, I wrote a quick POC using rbush and it improves the performance when we zoom on a specific area (and fewer points are actually shown on the map). I can contribute to this issue if necessary.

Start by locating the heatmap plugin's minified JavaScript and its _redraw path, then review the reported rbush proof of concept and the maintenance concern around Leaflet.heat. Done would require an agreed scope for maintaining the plugin and evidence that the heatmap performs better when rendering millions of points.