I mostly agree with your post, and I also agree with most of the responses I've seen. I'm quite enjoying this discussion; thanks for that. There's one thing at the end of your post that I haven't seen addressed, though:

if there are two ways to do something, and one costs less than the other and they are otherwise equal, use the one that uses less

This is pretty clearly true, but I have to wonder how often two things are "otherwise equal." In my experience, there's almost always a tradeoff. Other replies have mentioned specific tradeoffs and examples, but I think it's also good to keep the general idea in mind, and keep an eye open to the balance involved in these kind of decisions.

In reply to Re: Optimisation isn't a dirty word. by revdiablo
in thread Optimisation isn't a dirty word. by BrowserUk

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