> Be a drop-in replacement for vanilla or other servers
It seems to me that unless it's a drop-in replacement its not a Minecraft server? Akin to how say an Uno deck isn't a drop-in replacement for a Hearts deck but still both card games but not both Uno decks.
Or is it just meaning that Pumpkin (besides the network) do things differently than vanilla and so you might not be able to open a vanilla created world using Pumpkin?
The only "complete" reimplementation of Java Minecraft that I'm aware of is Bedrock.
For example, in Java version if you take a circuit and activate it with a button/lever - it would always behave in the same way. In bedrock same setup could have random result. And "random" is something you don't want in a large sophisticated contraption.
I'd guess it's caused by some race-conditions in bedrock implementation, but alas it wasn't fixed in 7 years.