>>Ya know, pretty soon we will not have to worry so much about optimization. As you and others have demonstrated, we are approaching [at least in this example and some others], speeds in some areas where any or further optimization will be undiscernable to the users.
>
>I know about diminishing returns and all that, but is that really a good thing? Just look at the bloatware we've got to deal with nowadays because nobody bothers to trim down any code because of RAM limitations anymore...

Yeah, I was looking at this as a bad thing as well because human nature tends to slide toward the path of least resistance [laziness].