If you are worried about dumb compilers why do you use post increment operators where the code logic doesn't care if it's a pre or post operator? Post "requires" an intermediate variable to save the pre-incremented value so it can be returned post increment.

This preference for post increment is pervasive and I can't think why that should be. To me pre-increment is king because it puts the operator out front where I can see it instead of hiding the operator behind a variable. I expect most modern compilers would optimise the code if the "return" value's not used in any case, but in an embedded context where the odd nano-second may be important using post-increment by default seems really odd if you don't trust the compiler.