Remove bit-level packing

[Dekkonot]

The module currently has several functions that operate on a bit level that utterly thrash the performance of the module, to the point that there's a recommendation to not use them and functions that avoid them entirely. We should remove these entirely in the future.

This is rather far reaching because it involves removing some rather fundamental parts of the module, but it's a small price to pay for performance and futureproofing.