Ever since Shefts' Grammatical Method in Pāṇini and Kiparsky's Pāṇini as a Variationist, there has been a scholarly interest in discovering features in the Aṣṭādhyāyī that were unknown to even the earliest commentators.  Mr Rajpopat kindly sent me his 2021 PhD thesis in February this year.  I cannot give a definitive judgement, because I haven't had time to work through all the examples.  But it is a well-written, thought-provoking and compelling thesis.  I have more work to do on it, but at present I am convinced by Rajpopat's arguments and insights.  Apart from right-or-wrong, it raises lots of good questions and insights into problems with the Aṣṭa. and it's traditional interpreters. 

It would be interesting to have Vincenzo Vergiani's opinion, since he must be the closest reader of this thesis so far. 

Whatever the upshot, it's great for a technical work in our field to get some public exposure like this.  The public needs to be told repeatedly that research on ancient India is exciting and innovative, which it truly is!

Best,

Dominik