Can the ubuntu machine image ship with the AWS ecr-credential-helper?

Can the circleci ubuntu image ship with the aws/docker ecr-credential-helper? we use the orb but the setup of the same is adding around 1m to our build pipeline each time we need it. Would greatly appreciate any insights into

  1. why the image cannot ship with the helper installed?
  2. opportunities to prep the image before the build+push workflow starts
    PS - we do not want to login directly and store the creds on a text file on the build machine.
    thanks